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FOUR  HUNDRED  AND  SIXTY-FIVE  COPIES  OF 

THIS  WORK  HAVE  BEEN  PRINTED  FOR  MEMBERS  OF 

THE  BIBLIOPHILE  SOCIETY 


NOTE    BOOKS 

OF 

PERCY  BYSSHE  SHELLEY 

Part  III 


NOTE  BOOKS 

OF 

PERCY  BYSSHE   SHELLEY 


FROM  THE  ORIGINALS  IN  THE 
LIBRARY  OF  W.  K.  BIXBY 


DECIPHERED,  TRANSCRIBED,  AND  EDITED, 
WITH  A  FULL  COMMENTARY  BY 

H.  BUXTON  FORMAN,  C.B. 

IN  THREE  VOLUMES 


is 


PRINTED  FOR  MEMBERS  OF 

THE  BIBLIOPHILE  SOCIETY 

BOSTON,  M  CM  XI 


*H1S3 


Copyright,  191 1,  by 
The  Bibliophile  Society 

A II  rights  reserved 


•.•* 


CONTENTS  OF  PART  III 


PAGE 


Fragments :   "Alas,  if  I  could  feign" 4 

"There  was  a  star  when  Heaven  was 

young"    5 

Studies  apparently  for  the  choric  dialogue  in  Hel- 
las, "With  the  gifts  of  gladness" 
First  Fragment:  "Scatter  their  ashes"     ...        6 
Second    Fragment:    "Though    thou    scatterst 

their  ashes" 6 

Draft  of  A  Lament:  "Swifter  far  than  summer's 

flight" 9 

Studies  probably  for  "The  keen  stars  are  twinkling" 
First  Fragment:  "By  the  music  of  Heaven"      .     17 
Second    Fragment:    "A  star     from    Shelleys 

Bower" 17 

Fragments:  "Thou  vision  of  abandoned  years"  .      18 
Of  Charles  the  First  [?]    ....     19 
"When  wilt  thou  come — "      ...     19 
Cyprian:  Scenes  from  Calderon's  Play  El  Magico 
Prodigioso 

Preliminary  Remarks 21 

Scene  I  (A)  :  "In  the  [sweet]  solitude  of  this 

calm  place" 26 

Scene  1(B):  "Now  since  I  am  alone  let  me 

examine" 37 


fl& 


PAGE 


Scene  I  (C)  :  "Here  stop— these  toppling 

rocks  &  tangled  boughs" 63 

Scene  II:  "We  are  all  lost" 75 

Charles  the  First 

Abstract  or  Program  of  Acts  I  and  II     .     .     .103 
Memoranda  of  limits  of  Act  II  with  Sketch  of 
a  Tree  and  Pen  Drawing  of  a  Sailing  Boat  104 

Heme's  Feast :  a  Fragment 108 

Memoranda 

(1)  For  First  Act  of  a  Play:  Modern  Timon  126 

(2)  Of  Titles  of  French  Books 127 

Deleted  Fragment :  "I  love  thee  not"      .     .     .     .127 
Fragments :  "One  word  has  changed  the  Universe 

for  me" 127 

"And   have   we    trodden   the    same 

paths  together" 127 

Draft  of  the  Song  "Far  far  away,  o  ye"      .     .     .128 

Draft  of  The  World's  Wanderers 132 

The  Kiss  ("We  meet  not  as  then  we  parted") 

Draft 138 

Two  Cancelled  Passages 138 

Appendix  I:  Shelley's  Unfinished  Composition 
written  in  Italian  Prose  and  known  as  Una 
Favola 

Translation  by  Richard  Garnett 151 

Shelley's  Draft  in  Note  Book  I 158 

The  Text  as  given  in  Garnett's  Relics  of  Shelley  159 
Appendix  II:  Bibliographical  Particulars  of  the 

three  Note  Books 173 


cvin 
1  1    *  • 


SHELLEY  NOTE  BOOKS 
Part  III 


NOTE  BOOK  III 

"Alas,  if  I  could  feign"  :  a  Fragment 

NOTE  BOOK  III  opens  uneventfully  enough 
with  a  page  on  which  stand  the  first  two 
items  of  the  Unpublished  Matter  entered  in  the 
Sale  Catalogue  of  the  Auctioneers:— 

"i.  Four  imperfect  lines— 'Alas  if  I  would  [sic} 
feign,'  etc. 

"2.  Below  this  comes  a  list  of  the  months,  April  to 
September,  with  nos.  such  as  August  30,  Septr  31,'  sug- 
gesting that  Shelley  had  a  lax  idea  of  the  numbers  of 
days  in  months." 

Without  attempting  to  investigate  the  question 
whether  the  admirable  memorial  poem 

Thirty  days  hath  September, 
April,  June,  and  November, 

was  less  dear  and  helpful  to  the  poet  than  it  has 
ever  been  to  one  of  his  editors,  who  shall  be  name- 
less, we  will  pass  to  that  part  of  our  chronicle 


which  relates  to  the  first  item :  the  four  lines  are  as 
follows  :— 

Alas,  if  I  could  feign 

A  smile  as  you  a  tear — 
Sunshine  to  the  rain 

Would  appear  [  .  .  . 

In  this  not  very  promising  fragment  line  2  was 
first  written 

Smiles  as  you  do  tears— 

and  in  line  4  Would  was  written  twice  and  can- 
celled once.  It  is  evident  that  the  alteration  of  the 
second  line  was  made  before  the  rhyme-word  after 
the  gap  was  jotted  down  as  a  memorandum.  There 
is  a  certain  subtlety  of  suggestion  in  the  little 
quatrain,  but  nothing  to  indicate  whether  its 
heroine  was  Mary  or  some  one  else.  The  page 
bears  in  ink,  beside  the  two  items  named  in  the 
catalogue,  some  simple  arithmetic  and  a  few  pen- 
cilled touches.  The  verso  is  blank.  On  page  III  2  r. 
there  is  nothing  but  a  tiny  drawing  in  pencil  of 
a  tree,  and  on  the  recto  only  two  false  starts  in 
pencil  for  something  or  other,  She  was  and  Like, 
both  struck  out. 

Page  III  3  r.— another  one  with  a  blank  verso- 
has  the  following  tentatives:— 

It  was 
The  fairest 

Sweet 

C43 


There  was  a  star  when  Heaven  was  young 
That  twin  with  Hesper  sprung — 
The  music  that  without  a  lyre 
Wandered  oer  the  sea 
Struck  [  •  .  . 

Of  these  pencilled  tentatives  the  first  three  and  the 
line  Wandered  oer  the  sea  are  struck  through.  Be- 
tween star  and  Heaven  the  word  in  stands  cancelled 
in  favour  of  when;  and  in  the  next  line  from  the  was 
rejected  for  twin. 

Page  III  4  r.  is  blank;  but  on  pages  III  4  v.  and 
5  r.  are  pencilled  what  might  possibly  be  tentatives 
connected  with  the  poem  entitled  An  Ode  Written 
October  l8lQ  before  the  Spaniards  had  recovered 
their  Liberty,  published  in  1820  among  the  mis- 
cellaneous poems  accompanying  Prometheus  Un- 
bound. I  am  disposed,  however,  with  Rossetti,  to 
regard  the  whole  contents  of  Note  Book  III  as 
very  late,  probably  belonging  in  the  main  to  1822 
and  including  nothing  of  an  earlier  year  than  1821. 
In  that  case,  and  considering  further  the  move- 
ment of  the  verse  in  the  second  set  of  these  uncom- 
pleted quatrains,  I  should  place  them  with  the 
fragments  belonging  to  Hellas,  and  connect  them 
with  that  sublime  Chorus  on  the  struggle  for  free- 
dom then  going  on  in  Greece,  lines  94  to  109. 


m 


First  Fragment 

Scatter  their  ashes 

The  sparks  will  burn — 
Like  the  death 

Darken  their  glory— 

Their  fame  shall  be 
All  the  brighter 

In  song  &  in  story  [. 

Second  Fragment 

Though  thou  scatterst  their  ashes 

The  spark  will  yet  burn 
Like  star  flashes 

From  the  urn 

Though  thou  darken  their  glory 

Their  names  will  yet  be 
The  far  lights  for  story 

To  together 

Like  stars  through  the  rolling 
Of  clouds  [  •  •  . 

In  the  first  Fragment  a  fourth  line  was  begun  with 
the  letters  De,  which  are  cancelled.  The  line 
Darken  their  glory  was  first  written  as  Darken 
their  memory ;  and  after  Their  fame  shall  be  a  line 
was  begun  with  All  the  brighter.  In  the  second 
Fragment  the  first  line  was  originally  written 

Though  thou  tramplest  their  ashes  [ ; 

C  6  3 


and,  between  the  cancelled  tramplest  and  the  pecu- 
liar form  scatterst  substituted  for  it,  the  words  ashes 
and  the  are  written.  The  second  quatrain  of  the 
second  Fragment  was  started  with  Though  their 
memory  shine;  it  is  probable  that  an  adverb  was  to 
have  completed  the  line;  in  the  second  line  fame 
stands  cancelled  in  favour  of  names.  In  the  un- 
completed fourth  line  there  is  a  word  struck  out 
after  To— it  may  be  race— and  together  is  also 
struck  out.  In  the  final  attempt  to  start  another 
quatrain,  volume  stands  cancelled  for  rolling,  and 
the  words  Of  clouds  are  struck  out.  If  there  is 
good  ground  for  my  suspicion  that  Shelley  was 
here  feeling  his  way  for  that  great  passage  in  which 
the  Chorus  of  Greek  Captive  Women  divide  into 
Semichorus  I  and  Semichorus  II,  it  follows  that 
he  had  not  yet  settled  the  number  of  feet  which 
were  to  compose  a  line;  but  the  movement  and  the 
tone  seem  to  me  almost  unmistakable;  and,  as  the 
passage  is  one  of  the  most  truly  sublime  pages  in 
the  poetry  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  I  cannot  do 
better  than  transcribe  it,  in  order  that  my  readers 
may  sit  in  judgment  on  the  spot.  It  will  be  remem- 
bered that  the  scene  is  a  Terrace  of  the  Seraglio  at 
Constantinople,  on  which  the  Sultan  Mahmud  lies 
asleep. 

Semichorus  I 

With  the  gifts  of  gladness 
Greece  did  thy  cradle  strew; 

t7l 


Semichorus  II 
With  the  tears  of  sadness 

Greece  did  thy  shroud  bedew ! 

Semichorus  I 
With  an  orphan's  affection 

She  followed  thy  bier  through  Time ; 

Semichorus  II 
And  at  thy  resurrection 

Re-appeareth,  like  thou,  sublime  I 

Semichorus  I 
If  Heaven  should  resume  thee, 
To  Heaven  shall  her  spirit  ascend; 

Semichorus  II 
If  Hell  should  entomb  thee, 

To  Hell  shall  her  high  hearts  bend. 

Semichorus  I 
If  annihilation — 

Semichorus  II 
Dust  let  her  glories  be  I 
And  a  name  and  a  nation 

Be  forgotten,  Freedom,  with  thee! 

A  LAMENT 

On  page  III  6  r.  Shelley  began  the  draft  of  the 
poem  generally  known  as  A  Lament,  but  in  this 

C  8  ] 


Note  Book  unfurnished  with  a  title  or  heading. 
On  the  verso  of  the  page  is  nothing  but  a  tiny  pencil 
sketch  of  a  tree ;  and  another  drawing  of  trees  is  at 
the  head  of  page  III  7  r.,  where  the  draft  is  con- 
tinued. The  verso  of  this  page  also  has  nothing  on 
it  relevant  to  A  Lament,  which  is  practically  fin- 
ished on  III  9  r.,  though  it  was  found  necessary  to 
accommodate  the  final  line  with  a  place  at  the  foot 
of  the  opposite  page  8  v.  The  verso  of  leaf  III  9 
is  blank.  This  song  is  drafted  in  pencil,  with  a  few 
revisions  in  ink.  The  following  text  is  the  final 
outcome  of  the  drafting;  and,  for  the  purposes  of 
the  ensuing  comment,  we  will  call  it  the  Cyprian 
text—  Cyprian  being  the  name  inscribed  by  the  poet 
on  the  parchment  cover  of  Note  Book  III. 


1]     Swifter  far  than  summer's  flight 
Swifter  far  than  happy  night 
Swifter  too  than  youths  delight 

Art  thou  come  &  gone 
As  the  wood  when  leaves  are  shed 
As  the  heart  when  joy  is  dead 
As  the  night  when  sleep  is  fled 
I  am  left  lone,  alone— 


11]     The  swallow  summer  comes  again 
The  owlet  night  resumes  her  reign- 
But  the  wild  swan  Youth,  is  fain 
To  fly  with  thee,  false  as  thou. — 

C93 


My  heart  each  day  desires  the  morrow 
Sleep  itself  is  turned  to  sorrow 
Vainly  wd  my  winter  borrow 
Sunny  leaves  from  any  bough 

in]     Lilies  for  a  bridal  bed 

Roses  for  a  matrons  head; 
Violets  for  a  maiden  dead 

Pansies  let  my  flowers  be ; 
On  the  living  grave  I  bear 
Scatter  them  without  a  tear — 
Let  no  friend,  however  dear 

Waste  one  hope  one  fear  for  me  [. 

The  pages  devoted  to  this  poem  are  among  the 
most  fascinating  in  the  note-book  called  Cyprian, 
in  respect  of  the  glimpses  they  give  us  into  the  mind 
of  the  poet  as  he  composed  it.  The  text  has  long 
been  practically  established  without  a  single  flaw 
to  amend;  but  of  the  way  in  which  it  gradually 
shaped  itself  in  Shelley's  mind  we  knew  but  little. 
Mary  Shelley  first  published  it  as  A  Lament  in 
1824  among  the  Posthumous  Poems.  Mr.  Rossetti 
had  access  to  a  copy  headed  Remembrance  sent  by 
Shelley  to  Jane  Williams;  and  he  adhered  in  the 
main  to  that  copy  in  1870.  In  1877  I  printed  it  in 
my  library  edition  from  a  much  better  holograph 
in  the  late  Lord  Houghton's  copy  of  Adonais. 
This  version  is  a  distinct  advance  on  the  1824  text, 
excellent  as  that  is,  and  superior  as  it  is  to  the 
"Jane"  text.    Than  the  Cyprian  text  as  finally  left 

Don 


by  Shelley  and  as  set  out  above,  we  should  not  have 
desired  anything  more  exquisite  had  it  not  been 
our  good  fortune  to  find  one  or  two  unquestionable 
and  authoritative  emendations.  The  "Jane"  copy, 
followed  in  1870,  has  the  first  three  lines  in  this 
order;  but  in  the  texts  of  1824  and  1877  lines  2  and 
3  change  places.  In  the  1824  and  1870  texts  lines  5 
to  7  read  thus : — 

As  the  earth  when  leaves  are  dead, 
As  the  night  when  sleep  is  sped, 
As  the  heart  when  joy  is  fled, 

but  the  wording  of  the  Houghton  text  of  those  lines 
(1877)  is  identical  with  Cyprian's,  only  the  order 
of  lines  6  and  7  is  inverted,  advantageously. 

In  line  5  of  the  second  stanza,  the  "Jane"  copy 
reads 

My  heart  today  desires  tomorrow, 

which  the  Cyprian  copy  expressly  rejects  in  favour 
of  the  reading  of  1824  and  1877.  In  the  third 
stanza  the  "Jane"  copy  has  the  following  as  lines  4 
and  8- 

Sadder  flowers  find  for  me ; 
and 

Waste  a  hope,  a  fear  for  me— 

instead  of  the  properly  rhyming  lines  of  Cyprian, 
1824,  and  1877.  The  only  striking  flaw  in  the 
Cyprian  text  is  the  word  too  in  the  third  line  of 

En] 


stanza  I;  and  Shelley  amended  that  flaw  when 
writing  the  poem  in  the  Houghton  Adonais. 

Passing  from  the  Cyprian  text  to  the  successive 
trial  lines  and  readings  from  which  it  has  to  be  dis- 
entangled, we  find  in  the  first  place  that,  when 
Shelley  took  this  Note  Book  and  a  pencil  in  hand, 
to  harvest  the  thoughts  with  which  his  brain  was  on 
this  occasion  teeming,  he  had  not  even  settled  the 
metre  of  the  song,  and  made  a  start  indicating  that 
the  whole  eight  lines  of  the  stanza  would  be  of  uni- 
form length— three  beats  of  time  in  each.  The 
opening  as  first  written  down  stands  thus  (lines  3, 
4,  and  5  being  cancelled)  :— 

Swifter  than  summers  flight 

Swifter  than  youth's  delight 

Swifter  than  dreamless 

Or  sleep  in  dreamless  night 

Thou 

Swifter  than  dreamless  night 

Art  thou  come  and  gone  [. 

But  the  true  musical  form  of  his  thought  blossomed 
as  he  shaped  the  next  three  lines— 

As  the  earth  when  leaves  are  dead 

As  the  heart  when  joy  is  fled 

As  the  night  when  sleep  is  sped  [ — 

so  he  went  back  and  inserted  far  over  Swifter  in 
line  r,  too  over  line  2,  turned  Swifter  than  dream- 

n«3 


less  night  into  Swifter  far  than  happy  night,  and 
then  drafted  line  8  thus  :— 

I  am  now  left  alone- 
alone, 
I  am  now  left  lone,  alone— 

which  he  converted  into  the  single  line  of  magic 
I  am  left  lone,  alone. 

It  was  in  some  such  way,  I  think,  that  the  faultless 
movement  of  the  passage  from  Hellas  already 
dwelt  on  was  evolved.  Before  leaving  stanza  I  of 
A  Lament,  he  put  the  figures  I,  3,  and  2  against  the 
first  three  finally  revised  lines,  so  as  to  give  them 
the  order  shown  above.  It  was  probably  later  that 
he  substituted  wood  for  earth  in  line  5  and  the 
rhyme-words  shed,  dead,  and  fled  for  dead,  fled, 
and  sped,  these  revisions  being  the  only  words  writ- 
ten in  ink  on  the  pencilled  page,  which,  by  the  by, 
has  at  the  top  a  little  pencil  sketch  of  what  might 
very  well  be  a  simple  grave  in  the  Protestant  Ceme- 
tery close  under  one  of  the  towers  of  the  old  Roman 
wall.  The  page  on  which  the  second  stanza  is  pen- 
cilled also  has  a  little  sketch  at  the  top,  giving  the 
impression  of  a  glimpse  of  English  park  scenery 
where  the  nearest  trees  are  just  over  the  brow  of  a 
hill  and  the  few  lines  indicating  the  slope  toward 
the  spectator  interfere  with  lines  1  and  2  of  the 
stanza,  in  which  there  is  not  really  a  stroke  of  revi- 

D33 


sion.  For  line  3,  however,  he  wrote  what  seems  to 
have  been  first 

But  youth's  delight  is  a  wild  swan  [, 

and  then  a  lone  wild  swan,  before  he  abolished  the 
sententiousness  and  the  poor  rhyme  with  a  hard 
careless  stroke  of  his  pencil  and  attained  perfection 
at  a  leap  with  his — 

But  the  wild  swan  Youth,  is  fain 
To  fly  with  thee  [  .  .  . 

Perfection  to  the  sensitive  artistic  conscience  of 
Shelley  was  a  far  cry;  and  before  the  fourth  line 
took  shape  as 

To  fly  with  thee,  false  as  thou 

he  had  written 

To  fly  with  thee,  like  thee  for 

&  as  thou  hast  done  [, 

of  which  like  thee  and  the  last  half-line  are  can- 
celled. The  half-line  may  be  merely  a  note  of  the 
drift  of  what  he  wanted  to  get  in.  Having  got  it  in, 
he  wrote  his  rejected  line  5,— 

My  heart  today  desires  tomorrow 

and  substituted  the  established  reading,  together 
with  that  of  line  6.  For  line  7  he  wrote  the  follow- 
ing false  start  and  redundant  line— 

C43 


And  my  pale 

And  in  vain  my  wintry  life  wd  borrow  [  — 

finally  striking  out  all  but  vain  my  wintry  and  bor- 
row, writing  by  over  my,  er  over  ry,  and  inserting 
wd  my,  and  leaving  me  to  put  the  capital  V  to 
Vainly.  The  eighth  line  seems  to  have  been  altered, 
but  only  seems,  the  word  Sunny  having  been  writ- 
ten twice  because  the  first  attempt  resulted  in  indis- 
tinctness. When  he  returned  to  the  poem  with  a 
pen  and  ink,  all  he  did  to  this  page  was  to  write 
Youth,  very  clearly  with  a  comma  after  it,  insert 
another  comma  at  thee  in  the  next  line,  put  a  full- 
stop  and  dash  at  the  end  of  line  4,  and  touch  up  the 
ed  in  turned. 

It  is  in  the  third  stanza  that  the  most  subtle  and 
infallible  command  of  perfection  is  shown,  as  usual 
after  feeling  about  and  trying  phrases  and  so  on 
below  the  level  of  the  perfect.    Here  he  began  with 

Violets  for  a  maidens  bier 
Lilies  for  a  bride's  [.  .  . 

Then  he  substituted  grave  for  bier;  but  the  simple 
loveliness  of  the  established  reading  must  have 
flashed  on  him  almost  at  once,  because  the  next 
change  brings  in  the  bridal  bed  and  of  necessity  the 
maiden  dead,  the 

Roses  for  a  matron's  head 
Ci53 


blooming  without  visible  effort.  Then  comes  the 
perception  of  absolute  propriety  in  a  changed  order 
of  the  lines,  recorded  by  the  insertion  of  the  figures 
3,  i,  and  2  against  the  lines  as  composed.  The 
fourth  line  as  first  written  is  peculiarly  lovely, 
lovelier  than  that  of  the  "Jane"  copy  and  set  aside 
partly  for  the  same  reason.    It  is 

Cypress,  pansies,  rue— for  me. 

This  was  not  given  up  at  once:  the  drafting  pro- 
ceeded thus:— 

For  me 

My  soul  when  the  living 

Weep  for  one  who 

Let  the  grave  be  deep 

Forme 

Let  no  dear 

Let  the  living  grave  I  bear  [  .  .  . 

Then  six  of  the  seven  lines  are  condemned  and  Let 
in  the  seventh  is  altered  to  On  to  make  the  estab- 
lished reading  of  line  5,  corresponding  with  6  and 
7,  which  remain  unaltered  from  the  first  draft. 
Then  the  word  Waste  was  written  and  cancelled ; 
and  the  true  and  final  line  8  at  once  written  on 
the  opposite  page,  after  some  lines  unconnected 
with  this  poem.  Thus  so  far  as  the  pencil  writing 
is  concerned,  he  finished  with  the  rhyme  me  and 
me\  but  when  he  came  back  with  the  pen  he  in- 
serted in  ink  the  true,  the  immortal  line  as  it  now 

C.16J. 


stands,  put  a  semicolon  at  the  end  of  line  2,  put  in 
the  important  initial  On  in  line  5,  already  there  in 
pencil,  did  the  same  service  to  Scatter  them,  put  a 
dash  after  tear,  sketched  a  tiny  tree-top  in  the  upper 
margin,  and  closed  the  book  on  one  of  the  saddest, 
sweetest,  and  most  perfect  songs  in  our  language. 
On  page  III  7  v.  are  the  words  (in  pencil) 

By  the  music  of  Heaven 
A  star  out  of 

and  on  page  III  8  v.  (also  in  pencil)  are  the  rest 
of  a  floating  series  of  thoughts,  each  rejected  as  it 
occurred,  tending  in  the  direction  of  The  keen  stars 
are  twinkling. 

By  night 

A  star  from  Shelleys  Bower 

A  star  came  out  of  the  deep 

Heaven  &  music  enkind 

Soothes  to  its  sleep  of  silence  &  light 

By  Heavens  love 
And  bow  with  its  ascendent 

the  world  [  .  .  . 

The  second  group  consists  wholly  of  lines  and 
words  which  the  poet  struck  out  or  meant  to  strike 
out.  The  first  group  was  rejected  simply  by  pass- 
ing on  from  page  7  v.  to  page  8  v.,  but  was  not 
struck  out,  though  a  bit  of  a  word  of  uncertain 
identity  is  cancelled  after  Heaven.  This  is  one  of 
the  very  rare  occasions  on  which  Shelley  has  intro- 

Ci73 


duced  his  own  family  name  into  a  poem  or  verse. 
The  only  published  case  I  recall  at  the  moment  is 
in  another  composition  with  which  Jane  Williams 
is  associated — To  Jane:  The  Recollection,  which 
ends  with  the  singular  statement— 

Though  thou  art  ever  fair  and  kind, 

The  forests  ever  green, 
Less  oft  is  peace  in  Shelley's  mind, 

Than  calm  in  waters  seen. 

Page  III  8  r.  has  a  painful  fragment  pencilled  on 
it,  whereof  every  word  is  cancelled  or  meant  to  be 
cancelled. 

Thou  vision  of  abandoned  years 

Let  the  wounded  deer  go  moan 

Let  the  \      .  ,         I  deer  go  weep 
(stricken   J  6  r 

Such 

Take  no  shape 

Any  shape  but  's  wear 

Vision  of  a  fatal  year 

Tempt  me  not  to  hope  or  fear 

Any  shape  but  [  .  .  . 

The  movement  here,  and  the  circumstance  that  a 
triplet  in  the  prevailing  measure  of  A  Lament  is 
almost  completed,  point  to  the  possibility  that 
these  hints  at  a  personal  grief— say  the  suicide  of 
Harriett  Shelley  or  that  of  "Fanny  Godwin" 
(Frances  Wollstonecraft,  the  half-sister  of  Mary 

Ci8l] 


Shelley)  — written  between  the  pages  of  the  Lament 
were  really  connected  with  that  composition  and 
abandoned  as  unsuitable. 

The  lines  and  words  somewhat  confusedly  writ- 
ten with  a  pencil  on  page  III  10  r.  are  not  suffi- 
ciently articulate  to  be  of  much  interest.  In  the 
order  in  which  they  stand  they  are  as  follows:  — 

thee  to  tell 
Will  not  dedicate  my  spirit, 
I  envy 

The  trum[pet] 

And  if  I  dedicate  thee  not  to  fill 
With 

The  trumpest  of  Prospterity  [sic] 
With  [  .  .  . 

It  may  be  assumed  that  the  first  curiosity  in  the  last 
line  but  one  is  meant  for  trumpet;  but  whether  the 
other  curiosity  is  Prosperity  or  Posterity,  I  am  not 
clever  enough  to  say  with  any  confidence.  The 
fragment  might  possibly  belong  to  the  unfinished 
drama  Charles  the  First,  especially  as  there  is  a 
strong  likelihood  that  the  next  three  pages  in  the 
book,  III  10  v.,  n  r.,  and  u  v.,  belong  to  that 
work,  being  probably  a  part  of  a  speech  in  which 
Henrietta  addresses  Death.  The  passage  seems  to 
me  to  work  out  as  follows:  — 

When  wilt  thou  come — 

that  coy  shadow 
Of  whom  thou  speakest 

[I9J" 


He  who  flies  far  from  grief  but  ever  comes 

Too  soon  for  joy,  who  like  the  guest  prosperity 

Deserts  the  couch  of  sickness  and  despair, 

Never  comes  near  to  close  the  eyes  that  weep, 

And  is  too  delicate  to  kiss  the  lips 

Of  ice-lipped  poverty,  too  worldly-wise 

To  lighten  with  his  touch  the  fallen  glory 

Or  consort  with  abandoned  majesty  •  • 

O  wintry  libertine,  whose  love  makes  pure 

The  virgin  promise  of  the  spring  of  life 

Would  that  I  were  as  sinless  fair  and  young 

As  innocent  of  sorrow  &  of  shame 

As  those  who  in  thy  cold  embraces  sleep 

Ere  misery  has  made  my  living  corpse 

Too  bitter  food  for  thee— o  that  one  hope 

Remained  to  make  me  sweet  to  thee. 

The  allocation  of  these  lines  to  Charles  the  First  is 
of  course  somewhat  speculative;  and  it  must  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  passage  is  one  of  those  in- 
cluded under  the  head  of  Unpublished  Matter  in 
Note  Book  III  entered  as  item  "3,  several  lines 
beginning:  'When  wilt  thou  come?'  obscurely 
written,  but  partly  decipherable."  They  certainly 
provided  a  troublesome  piece  of  reading;  but  I  do 
not  think  there  is  much  more  to  find  out  about  their 
purport,  though  a  few  blurred  and  rubbed  cancel- 
lings  might  doubtless  be  deciphered,  if  they  were 
likely  to  prove  worth  the  labour  of  bringing  the 
heavy  artillery  of  lime-light  and  magic  lantern  to 
bear  upon  the  pages. 

C203 


CYPRIAN 

Scenes  from  Calderon's  Play  "El  Magico 
Prodigioso" 

Pages  III  12  r.  to  13  v.  are  the  four  pages  of  two 
blank  leaves.  Page  14  r.  is  also  blank;  but  the 
verso,  14  v.,  is  used  as  a  chapel  of  ease  to  15  r.,  on 
which  the  drafting  of  what  Shelley  calls  Cyprian 
is  begun.  There  are  no  fewer  than  forty-one  pages 
devoted  to  the  rendering  in  English  of  two  of  those 
three  scenes  from  Calderon's  play  El  Magico  Pro- 
digioso which  Shelley  translated  to  form  part  of 
the  basis  of  a  projected  essay  in  The  Liberal.  The 
three  Scenes  in  question  are  taken  from  all  three 
Acts  of  El  Magico.  Shelley's  Scene  I  is  from  the 
opening  of  the  original  play,  and  corresponds  with 
somewhat  less  than  half  of  Act  I.  Scene  II  repre- 
sents a  still  smaller  proportion  of  the  Second  Act 
in  the  Spanish;  and  Scene  III  is  taken  from  the 
Third  Act,  of  which  it  renders  about  a  quarter. 
The  choice  was  thoroughly  admirable  for  the  many 
aspects  of  Calderon's  genius  which  the  translation 
thus  exemplifies.  In  Scene  I  we  get  a  delightfully 
fresh  and  fragrant  woodland  scene  in  a  mountainous 

C«3 


quarter  near  Antioch,  in  which  the  dignified  and 
studious  Cyprian,  occupied  with  high  questions  of 
theology,  dismisses  for  a  holiday  two  comic  char- 
acters, Clarin  and  Moscon,  entertains  the  disguised 
Devil  and  overcomes  him  in  argument,  separates 
and  pacifies  Lelio  and  Floro,  two  aspirants  to  the 
love  of  the  heroine  Justina  (a  Christian)  who 
stumble  upon  his  solitude  to  "fight  it  out,"  and 
induces  them  to  refer  their  quarrel  to  him, — by 
doing  which  they  put  him  in  communication  with 
Justina. 

Scene  II  depicts  Cyprian  himself  over  head  and 
ears  in  love  with  Justina,  and  includes  the  magnifi- 
cent sham  storm  and  shipwreck  "staged"  by  the 
Devil  to  avenge  his  discomfiture  in  the  encounter 
of  wits  set  before  us  in  Scene  I,  and  places  him  in 
the  position  of  a  Magian  with  power  to  grant  any 
request  of  Cyprian's, — a  power  which  he  uses  in  an 
endeavour  to  ruin  the  souls  of  Cyprian  and  Justina. 

Scene  III  gives  us  a  beautiful  view  of  the  char- 
acter of  Justina,  and  is  a  fine  specimen  of  Calde- 
ron's  delicacy  of  perception  and  splendour  of 
imagination. 

Shelley  did  not  put  the  last  touches  on  the  whole 
of  any  one  of  the  three  scenes;  and  there  is  some 
little  doubt  as  to  the  amount  of  work  Mary  Shelley 
did  to  fit  them  for  publication  in  the  Posthumous 
Poems  of  1824.  The  unity  and  beauty  of  the  style 
forbids  the  suspicion  that  she  found  it  needful  to 
interfere  materially  with  the  text  or  in  any  way 

C223 


damage  the  texture  of  the  verse  save  by  those  acci- 
dents to  which  she  and  all  subsequent  editors  of  her 
husband's  remains  have  been  liable  through  the 
extraordinary  dangers  of  misreading,  or  of  missing 
the  way  through  "intricate  wild  wildernesses"  of 
words,— to  use  an  expression  in  the  opening  of 
Scene  I.    I  would  give  much  to  find  the  means  of 
setting  the  second  line  in  that  scene  to  rights.    An 
"intricate  wild  wilderness"  is  so  much  more  charm- 
ing and  expressive  than  correct  that  one  has  never 
felt  absolutely  at  one's  ease   in   starting  on   the 
perusal  of  these  beautiful  pages  of  the  work  of 
Shelley's  last  year, — hoping,  however,  against  hope 
for  the  occurrence  of  some  note  or  jotting  which 
might  support  just  one  change  in  the  text  of  the 
first  three  lovely  lines,  where  Shelley  over-informs 
with  luxurious  appeal  to  the  senses  the  words  of  his 
author.    Calderon's  play  opens  with  the  words- 
En  la  amena  soledad 
de  aquesta  apacible  estancia, 
bellissimo  laberinto 
de  arboles,  flores,  y  plantas, 
podeis  dexarme,  dexando 
conmigo,  que  ellos  me  bastan, 
por  compania,  los  libros 
que  os  mande  sacar  de  casa  : 

Shelley's  rendering  as  published  opens  thus:  — 

In  the  sweet  solitude  of  this  calm  place, 
This  intricate  wild  wilderness  of  trees 

[23  3 


And  flowers  and  undergrowth  of  odorous  plants, 
Leave  me ;  the  books  you  brought  out  of  the  house 
To  me  are  ever  best  society. 

The  passage  seems  to  have  appealed  so  strongly  to 
the  sympathies  of  the  woodland-loving  and  wood- 
land-reading Shelley  as  to  make  him  endow  Calde- 
ron's  under-scrub  with  odours  extraneous  to  the 
Spaniard's  intent;  but  we  have  here  a  model  of 
poetic  transfusion,  apart  from  the  pleonastic  "wild 
wilderness,"  and  are  accordingly  pleased  to  take, 
as  a  test  question,  the  evidence  of  the  book  which  is 
called  Cyprian  on  that  point.  The  evidence  is  that 
Shelley  left  a  gap  between  intricate  and  wilderness 
in  the  first  instance,  and  wrote,  at  some  other  time 
in  all  probability,  a  word  above  the  gap  very  mi- 
nutely and  indistinctly— of  which  word,  though  not 
positively  certain  that  it  is  wild,  I  can  make  noth- 
ing likelier,  and  have  to  be  content  with  the  justi- 
fiable inference  that  it  was  but  on  its  trial  and  had 
not  satisfied  Shelley. 

So  far  as  the  evidence  of  this  Note  Book  goes, 
the  poet  did  not  begin  at  the  beginning  of  the 
work,  but  came  back  to  it  after  sketching-in  his 
Scene  II.  Even  there  he  did  not  begin  at  the  be- 
ginning, as  we  shall  see  presently;  but  when  he  got 
to  the  end  of  his  Scene  II— or  nearly  to  the  end- 
he  turned  over  and  began  Scene  I  at  the  back  of  the 
last  page  of  the  draft  of  Scene  II ;  and  it  is  to  that 
verso  page  that  we  have  just  been  having  recourse. 
Of  his  Scene  III  there  is  no  trace  in  this  Note 


Book,  so  that  we  have  but  the  two  scenes  to  deal 
with.  These  are  so  nearly  a  complete  and  articu- 
late thing  that  it  is  indispensable  to  print  them  here 
in  their  right  order. 

It  must  be  recorded  at  starting  that,  in  this 
highly  characteristic  draft,  Shelley  was  almost  as 
irregular  as  possible  in  the  matter  of  indicating  the 
speakers  of  the  various  passages.  Sometimes  he 
put  the  names  in  full,  sometimes  the  names  abbre- 
viated, sometimes  mere  initials,  sometimes  wrong 
names  or  wrong  initials,  and  sometimes  nothing  at 
all.  This  matter  I  have  ventured  to  regularize 
throughout  by  placing  the  name  of  the  speaker  cen- 
trally over  each  speech  without  the  customary 
sprinkling  of  hooks,  as  I  have  little  doubt  Mary 
Shelley  had  to  do.  I  am  inclined  to  the  belief  that, 
with  the  Spanish  before  her,  she  supplied  most  of 
the  English  stage  directions ;  and  these  I  have  given 
with  the  customary  hooks,  unless  they  chance  to  be 
supplied  by  Shelley.  Mary's  beautifully  written 
copy  of  this  Scene  I,  indeed,  was  until  recently 
the  only  known  manuscript  authority  for  certain 
changes  in  the  text  of  the  work  made  in  1877  m  mY 
first  library  edition.  Later  editors  have  been 
pleased  to  call  this  the  Leigh  Hunt  manuscript; 
but,  although  found  among  the  Hunt  papers  ac- 
quired by  Ralph  Townshend  Mayer,  it  was  in 
1877,  and  still  is,  in  my  Shelley  collection.  You 
need  not  mention  this  outside,  friends  of  the  Biblio- 
phile Society;  but,  between  ourselves,  I  think  it  is 
high  time  that,  after  thirty-three  years'  possession, 


the  manuscript  should  be  known  as  the  Buxton 
Forman  manuscript.  Mr.  Bixby's  and  it  are  still, 
I  believe,  the  only  ones  publicly  known  to  exist; 
and  Mr.  Bixby's  has,  up  to  the  present  time,  not 
been  drawn  on  for  emendations.  To  save  a  foot- 
note at  starting  on  our  Scene  I,  I  may  mention  that 
Mary  supplies  the  word  sweet  before  solitude 
in  line  i,  and  that  her  manuscript  reads,  rather 
richly,— 

Leave  me.    The  books  you  brought  me  out  of  the 
house  [  .  .  . 

I  do  not  suspect  her  of  introducing  the  second  me 
on  her  own  authority:  probably  she  had  some  note 
or  other  source  for  it  apart  from  Note  Book  III ; 
for  that  some  such  source  existed  is  clear  from  the 
explanation  given  to  me  in  1877  by  Garnett  in  re- 
gard to  one  emendation  of  Scene  II  and  one  of 
Scene  III  provided  in  his  Relics  of  Shelley. 
These,  said  Garnett,  were  "from  some  note  or  frag- 
ment of  draft."  As  Scene  I  has  virtually  three 
scenic  divisions,  these  may  usefully  be  distinguished 
as  Scene  I  (A),  Scene  I  (B),  and  Scene  I  (C). 
Here  follows 

Scene  I   (A) 

[Enter  Cyprian,  dressed  as  a  Student;  Clarin  and 
Moscon  as  poor  Scholars,  with  books.] 

In  the  [sweet]  solitude  of  this  calm  place 
This  intricate  wild  wilderness  of  trees 

1^1 


And  flowers  &  undergrowth  of  odorous  plants  3 

Leave  me ;  the  books  you  brought  out  of  the  house 

To  me  are  ever  best  society — 

And  whilst  with  joyous  festival  &  song  6 

Antioch  now  celebrates  the  consecration 

Of  its  proud  temple  to  great  Jupiter 

And  bears  his  image  in  loud  jubilee  9 

To  its  new  shrine,  I  would  consume  what  still 

Lives  of  the  dying  day  in  studious  thought 

Far  from  the  throng  &  tumult — you  my  friends       12 

Go  &  enjoy  the  festival ;  it  will 

Be  worth  your  [labour],  &  return  for  me 

When  the  sun  seeks  its  grave  among  the  billows       15 

Which  among  dim  grey  clouds  on  the  horizon 

Dance  like  white  plumes  upon  a  hearse;  and  here 

I  shall  expect  you— 

Moscon. 

I  cannot  bring  my  mind  is 

Great  as  my  haste  to  see  the  festival 
Certainly  is,  to  leave  you  Sir,  without 
Just  saying  some  3  or  4000  words.  21 

How  is  it  possible  that  on  a  day 
Of  such  festivity,  you  can  bring  your  mind 
To  come  forth  to  a  solitary  country  24 

With  three  or  four  old  books,  &  turn  your  back 
On  all  this  mirth. 

Clarin. 

My  master's  in  the  right 
There  is  not  anything  more  tiresome  27 

C27] 


Than  a  procession  day,  with  [troops  and  priests] 
And  dances  &  all  that. 

Moscon. 
From  first  to  last 
Clarin,  you  are  a  temporizing  flatterer —  30 

You  praise  not  what  you  feel,  but  what  he  does 
Toadeater — 

Clarin. 
You  lie — under  a  mistake 
For  that  is  the  most  civil  sort  of  lie  33 

That  can  be  given  to  a  man's  face— I  now 
Say  what  I  think  .  . 

Cyprian. 

Enough  you  foolish  fellows 
Puffed  up  with  y£  own  ignorance  &  envy  se 

You  always  take  two  sides  of  the  same  question. 
Now  go,  &  as  I  said,  return  for  me 
When  night  falls,  veiling  in  its  shadows  wide  39 

This  glorious  fabric  of  the  universe. 

Moscon. 
How  happens  it,  although  you  can  maintain 
The  folly  of  enjoying  festivals  42 

That  yet  you  go  there  ? 

Clarin. 
Nay  the  consequence 
Is  clear.    Who  ever  did  what  he  advises 
Others  to  do  ? 

C283 


Moscon. 

Would  that  my  feet  were  wings  45 

So  would  I  fly  to  Livia 

Exit 

Clarin. 

To  speak  truth 
Livia  [is  she  who  has  surprised  my  heart; 
But  he  is  more  than  half  way  there. — Soho  !  48 

Livia,  I  come;  good  sport,  Livia,  Soho  !] 

exit  [. 

On  the  close  of  Scene  I  (A)  upon  the  retreating 
forms  of  Moscon  and  Clarin,  let  us  take  the  oppor- 
tunity of  examining  the  evidence  for  and  against 
the  authenticity  of  lines  47,  48,  and  49,  which  I 
have  supplied  between  hooks  from  the  current  text 
in  place  of  the  two  words  Livia  stings  at  which 
Shelley  broke  off,  leaving  a  gap  big  enough  to  take 
the  three  lines  of  blank  verse  which  he  presumably 
considered  an  adequate  allowance  for  the  render- 
ing of  the  rest  of  Clarin's  brief  parting  speech. 
That  speech  is  in  six  of  Calderon's  short  lines, 
which  read  as  follows:— 

Clar.     Aunque,  si  digo  verdad, 

Libia  es  la  que  me  arrebata 

los  sentidos :  pues  ya  tienes 

mas  de  la  mitad  andada 

del  camino ;  llega,  Libia, 

al  na,  y  se,  Libia,  liviana.     Vas. 

L>93 


Below  the  gap  which  follows  Livia  stings  Shelley 
duly  wrote  the  word  exit.  Mary's  written  copy 
also  has  the  gap,  but  following  the  words 

Clar.     To  speak  the  truth 
Livia  [  .  .  . 

without  the  word  stings.  Hence,  we  have  not,  at 
present,  any  external  evidence  that  Shelley  ever 
finished  the  passage  at  all.  I  am  inclined  to  the 
view  that  he  did;  but  it  is  impossible  to  contend 
that  the  quality  of  the  verse  in  these  three  lines  is 
such  that  none  but  Shelley  could  have  produced 
them.  Indeed,  a  person  of  Mary's  capacity  might 
have  written  them;  and  I  do  not  think  that  in  1824 
she  could  have  been  much  blamed  for  doing  so,  in 
view  of  her  general  admission  that  the  Scenes  were 
not  "to  be  considered  as  having  received  the  au- 
thor's ultimate  corrections."  Having  broken  thus 
far  into  the  solitude  of  Cyprian,  we  may  as  well 
note  the  rest  of  the  textual  points  connected  with 
the  first  forty-nine  lines  before  leaving  him  to  his 
brilliant  encounter  of  wits  with  the  Devil.  Line  1 
was  first  written  thus— 

In  this  solitude  of  this  still  place  [ ; 

but,  though  as  already  noted  the  word  sweet  was 
not  here  supplied,  this  was  altered  to  the  and  still 
struck  out  in  favour  of  calm.     Line  6  has  a  false 

C3o3 


start,  Whilst,  cancelled,  and  was  next  written  with 
a  blank— 

And  whilst  with  festival  &  song  [  — 

which  blank  was  first  inadequately  filled  by  the  in- 
sertion of  loud,  merely  to  be  struck  out  in  favour  of 
joyous.  Line  8  has,  though  not  very  clearly  writ- 
ten, three  rejected  openings,  Of  a  new,  Of  the  new, 
and  Of  its  new.    The  line  of  our  text— 

Of  its  proud  temple  to  great  Jupiter 

is  a  little  stronger  than  the  old  text,  for  which  Mary 
had  selected  a  in  preference  to  its,  perhaps  because 
of  the  its  in  line  10,  where,  by  the  by,  there  is  a 
cancelled  concluding  phrase;  that  phrase  is  either 
far  from  the  rest,  or  far  from,  for  I  am  not  sure 
whether  the  rest  does  not  belong  to  would  consume 
in  that  line — /  would  consume  the  rest  /  of  the 
dying  day  —  and  far  from  is  at  all  events  only  an 
anticipation  of  the  opening  of  line  12.  Line  12  has 
a  cancelled  ending,  you  two  for  you  my  friends, 
which  is  followed  by  a  rejected  reading  for  line  13, 
May  go  to  Antioch,  and.  Line  14  was  left  thus  in 
Cyprian — 

Be  worth  your  ,  &  return  for  me  [, 

the  intention  being,  no  doubt,  to  insert  a  word  of 
two  syllables  — say  trouble  or  labour.  But  Mary 
gave  a  different  line  in  her  manuscript, — 

Be  worth  your  pains.    You  may  return  for  me  [  — 

C3I3 


and  that  reading  I  adopted  in  1877  as  against  the 
reading  current  up  to  that  time, — 

Be  worth  the  labour,  and  return  for  me. 

With  the  book  Cyprian  before  me  I  might  have 
chosen  differently;  but  the  point  is  one  of  complete 
uncertainty,  as  we  do  not  know  where  Mary  found 
either  her  printed  reading  of  1824  or  her  manu- 
script reading.  Here,  however,  we  come  upon  a 
much  more  interesting  point  in  the  draft:  Shelley 
has  cancelled  a  reading  of  a  notable  inspiration  for 
line  17— 

Are  heaped  over  its  golden  corpse  [  .  .  . 

and  when  he  had  written  the  line 

Nod,  like  white  plumes  upon  a  hearse; 

he  struck  out  Nod  and  substituted  the  Dance  of  our 
text,  which  is  the  established  reading.  The  case  is 
one  in  which,  although  the  poet  cannot  with  truth 
be  said  to  out-Omar  Omar  Fitzgerald  in  supplying 
imagery  to  an  alien  poet,  he  certainly  went  far  in 
anticipating  Fitz's  methods.    Calderon  wrote— 

Quando  el  Sol  cayendo  vaya 
a  sepultarse  en  las  ondas, 
que  entre  obscuras  nubes  pardas, 
al  gran  cadaver  de  oro, 
son  monumentos  de  plata, 


but  Shelley,  while  remaining  faithful  to  the  fune- 
real drift  of  the  imagery,  does  not  seem  to  have 
been  able  to  face  the  mechanical-flamboyant  style 
of  the  metaphor  of  waves  as  silver  monuments  over 
the  sunken  sun  as  a  corpse  of  gold.  And  really, 
looking  at  the  imagery  as  a  compromise  between 
the  art  of  the  poet  and  the  craft  of  the  undertaker, 
the  Englishman  seems  to  me  to  have  got  out  of  the 
Spaniard's  over-strained  gorgeousness  with  real 
and  vivid  splendour.  But  how  perilously  near  he 
came  to  floundering  into  the  same  mess,  the  really 
good  four  fifths  of  a  line  which  he  struck  out  show. 
In  line  18  Moscon's  /  cannot  bring  my  mind 
supersedes  the  words  Tis  impossible ;  line  24 
shows  the  rejected  opening  To  come  out  into;  and 
in  line  26  the  opening  Upon  the  and  the  word 
pleasure  are  struck  out  in  favour  of  On  all  this 
mirth.  In  the  same  line  Clarin's  My  master's  in 
the  right  is  substituted  for  the  lamer  My  master  is 
quite  right.  As  an  opening  for  line  36  You  stands 
cancelled,  and  the  next  line  was  first  written 

You  always  take  the  two  sides  of  one  question. 

Here  Shelley  substituted  the  same  for  one  but  for- 
got to  strike  out  the  before  two,  and  left  Mary  an 
excuse  for  preferring  the  less  robust  reading,  the 
two  sides  of  one  question,  which  has  subsisted  till 
today.  In  Moscon's  next  speech  there  is  a  can- 
celled reading  for  line  42— 

That  it  is  sheer  at  festivals 

C33H 


and  after  that  line  a  false  start  which  looks  like 
If  you  cannot  is  struck  out. 

Returning  now  to  Cyprian  in  his  supposed  soli- 
tude in  the  bosom  of  which  his  Satanic  Majesty 
the  Demon  is  concealed,  we  encounter  at  the  out- 
set a  textual  question  affecting  seriously  the  au- 
thority of  the  established  version  of  the  work  in 
matters  of  detail.  The  renowned  passage  about 
Pliny's  definition  of  God  is  extremely  fine  in  the 
original:— 

Cyp.     Ya  estoy  solo,  ya  podre, 
si  tanto  mi  ingenio  alcanza, 
estudiar  esta  question 
que  me  trae  suspensa  el  alma, 
desde  que  in  Plinio  lei, 
con  mysteriosas  palabras 
la  definicion  de  Dios ; 
porque  mi  ingenio  no  halla 
esse  Dios  en  quien  convengan 
mysterios,  ni  senas  tantas : 
esta  verdad  escondidida 
he  de  apurar. 

Having  written  without  correction  the  three  iambic 
lines  representing  the  first  five  short  lines  in  the 
foregoing  extract,  Shelley  at  once  found  himself  in 
comparatively  troubled  water:  he  wrote  and  re- 
jected 

( i )    The  definition 

( 2 )     The  mystic  definition  of  a 


(3)     Those  words  of  mystic  import  &  deep  sense 
The  definition  of  God — 

and  finally  arrived  at— 

The  words  of  mystic  import  &  deep  sense 
In  which  he  defines  God — my  intellect 
Can  find  no  God  with  whom  these  [  — 

and  here,  having  filled  page  III  23  v.,  he  had  to 
turn  over  before  he  could  finish  his  line  of  blank 
verse,  which,  to  record  with  exactness,  he  did  at  the 
top  of  page  III  24  r.,  writing 

marks  &  mysterious 
Fitly  agree  .  .  it  is  a  hidden  truth 
Which  I  must  fathom— 

and  Mary's  careful  transcript  seems  to  me  to  have 
been  made  from  this  passage  in  the  Cyprian  Book, 
with  slight  variation  of  pointing  and  capitalling 
and  one  verbal  change:  she  wrote  mysteries  where 
Shelley  had  written  mysterious,  he  having  possibly 
been  led  mechanically  astray  by  the  sound  of  the 
Spanish  mysterios  which  he  of  course  knew  meant 
mysteries  not  mysterious;  and  she  on  her  side,  hav- 
ing perchance  known  when  she  made  that  copy 
that  Shelley  meant  mysteries,  did  not  adhere  to  the 
impossible  line 

Can  find  no  God  with  whom  these  marks  &  mysterious  [ . 

C353 


When  she  prepared  the  copy  for  the  printer  to  set 
up  the  relative  pages  of  the  Posthumous  Poems,  she 
closed  the  line  with  marks  and  signs,  perhaps  hav- 
ing found  that  reading  in  some  note. of  Shelley's, 
but  quite  conceivably  having  chosen  that  method 
of  remedying  the  faulty  line  by  giving  two  equiva- 
lents for  the  Spanish  senas  and  none  for  mysterios. 
In  1877,  when  Cyprian  had  become  an  unknown 
book,  I  gave  the  preference  to  Mary's  printed  ver- 
sion and  merely  recorded  her  written  version  as  a 
foot-note:  now,  weighing  the  Spanish  text,  the 
faulty  line  in  Shelley's  own  writing,  and  Mary's 
two  readings,  I  should  prefer  to  assume  that  Shel- 
ley made  one  of  two  possible  slips;— either,  with 
the  sonorous  phrase  of  Calderon  and  his  own  finely 
turned  Fletcherian  triple-ended  blank  verse  both 
seething  together  in  his  brain,  he  mechanically 
wrote  mysterious  for  mysteries,  or  else  he  decided 
on  compounding  the  sense  of  the  two  nouns  mys- 
teries and  marks  or  signs  (mysterios  and  senas)  by 
means  of  a  noun  fortified  with  the  cognate  adjec- 
tive mysterious,  and  forgot  to  strike  out  the  wicked 
little  ampersand  which,  if  taken  as  the  final  inten- 
tion, forbids  any  reading  but  that  of  Mary's  manu- 
script. As  it  is  but  a  rough  draft  that  we  are  now 
treating,  we  will,  with  this  explanation,  print  as  a 
part  of  that  draft,  the  passage 

my  intellect 

Can  find  no  God  with  whom  these  marks  mysterious 

Fitly  agree  .  . 

C363 


in  which  our  troublesome  line  comes  out,  so  far  as 
metre  is  concerned,  as  a  rather  noble  compromise 
between  the  occasional  triple-ended  iambic  line  of 
Fletcher  and  the  recognized  double-ended  iambic 
line  of  any  other  poet  of  repute.  Now  for  Cyp- 
rian's word-combat  with  Satan  in 

Scene  I  (B) 
Cyprian. 

Now  since  I  am  alone  let  me  examine  so 

The  question  which  has  long  disturbed  my  mind 

With  doubt,  since  first  I  read  in  Plinius, 

Those  words  of  mystic  import  &  deep  sense  53 

In  which  he  defines  God— my  intellect 

Can  find  no  God  with  whom  these  marks  mysterious 

Fitly  agree  .  .  it  is  a  hidden  truth  se 

Which  I  must  fathom.—  [Reads] 

[Enter  the  Devil,  as  a  fine  Gentleman.] 

Demon. 

Search  even  as  thou  wilt 
But  thou  shalt  never  find  what  I  can  hide 

Cyprian. 

What  noise  is  that  among  the  boughs— who  goes  there  59 
What  art  thou 

Demon. 

Tis  a  foreign  gentleman 
Even  from  this  morning  I  have  lost  my  way 

C373 


In  this  wild  place,  &  my  poor  horse  at  last  62 

Quite  overcome,  has  stretched  himself  upon 

The  enamelled  tapestry  of  this  mossy  mountain 

And  feeds  &  rests  at  the  same  time.    I  was  65 

Upon  my  way  to  Antioch  upon  business 

Of  some  importance,  but  wrapt  up  in  cares, 

Who  is  exempt  from  this  [inheritance]  ?  as 

I  parted  from  my  company  &  lost 

My  way,  &  lost  my  servants  &  my  comrades. 

Cyprian. 

'Tis  singular  that  even  within  the  sight  71 

Of  the  high  towers  of  Antioch  you  thus  lost 

Your  way  .   .  Of  all  the  avenues  &  green  vallies 

Of  this  wild  wood  there  is  not  one  but  leads  ^i 

As  to  its  centre  to  the  walls  of  Antioch 

Take  which  you  will  you  cannot  miss  your  road 

Demon. 

And  such  is  ignorance,  even  in  the  sight  77 

Of  knowledge  it  can  draw  no  profit  from  it. 

But  as  it  still  is  early,  &  as  I 

Have  no  acquaintances  in  Antioch  so 

Being  a  stranger  there,  I  will  even  wait 

The  few  surviving  hours  of  the  day 

Until  the  night  shall  conquer  it— I  see  83 

Both  by  your  dress  &  by  the  books  in  which 

You  find  delight  &  company,  that  you 

Are  a  great  student ;  I  feel  «6 

Much  sympathy  with  such  pursuits ; 

C383 


Cyprian. 

Have  you 
Studied  much. 

Demon. 

No,  &  yet  I  know  enough 
Not  to  be  wholly  ignorant. 


Cyprian. 
What  science  may  you  know. 

Demon. 


Pray  Sir  89 


Many 


Cyprian. 

Alas 
Much  time  must  we  expend  on  one  alone 
And  even  then  attain  it  not— but  you  92 

Have  the  presumption  to  assert  that  you 
Know  many  without  study 

Demon. 

And  with  truth, 
For  in  the  country  whence  I  come,  the  sciences  95 

Require  no  teaching  they  are  known— 

Cyprian. 

O  would 
I  were  of  that  bright  country :  for  in  this 
The  more  we  study,  we  the  more  discover  »s 

Our  ignorance.— 


Demon. 

It  is  so  true,  that  I 
Had  so  much  arrogance  as  to  oppose 
The  chair  of  the  most  high  Professorship  101 

And  thought  to  carry  it,  and  might  have  done 
For  I  had  many  votes,  &  though  I  lost 
The  attempt  was  still  more  glorious,  than  the  failure 
Could  be  dishonourable  .  .  if  you  believe  not  105 

Let  us  refer  it  to  dispute  respecting 
That  which  you  know  the  best,  &  although  I  107 

Know  not  the  opinion  you  maintain  &  though 
It  be  the  true  one,  I  will  take  the  contrary 

Cyprian. 

The  offer  gives  me  pleasure — I  am  now  no 

Debating  with  myself  upon  a  passage 

Of  Plinius,  &  my  mind  is  racked  with  doubt 

To  understand  &  know  who  is  the  God  113 

Of  whom  he  speaks 

Demon. 

It  is  a  passage,  if 
I  recollect  it  right,  couched  in  these  words — 
God  is  one  supreme  goodness  one  pure  essence  ue 

One  substance ;  &  one  sense ;  all  sight,  all  hands. 

Cyprian. 
Tis  true 

Demon. 

What  difficulty  find  you  here  ? 

C403 


Cyprian. 

I  do  not  recognize  among  the  Gods  iia 

The  God  defined  by  Plinius ;  if  he  must 

Be  supreme  goodness— even  Jupiter 

Is  not  supremely  good,  because  we  see  122 

His  deeds  are  evil,  &  his  attributes 

Tainted  with  mortal  weakness;  in  what  manner 

Can  supreme  goodness  be  consistent  with  125 

The  passions  of  humanity? 

Demon. 

The  wisdom 
Of  the  old  world  masked  under  names  of  Gods, 

The  attributes  of  nature  &  of  man 128 

A  sort  of  popular  philosophy.— 

Cyprian. 

This  reply  will  not  satisfy  me,  for 

Such  awe  is  due  to  the  high  name  of  God  131 

That  ill  should  never  be  imputed — then 

Examining  the  question  with  more  strictness 

It  follows,  that  the  Gods  would  always  will  134 

That  which  is  best,  were  they  supremely  good. 

How  then  does  one  will  one  thing  one  another? 

And  [that]  you  may  not  say  that  I  alleadge  [sic]        137 

Poetical  or  philosophic  learning 

Consider  the  ambiguous  responses 

Of  their  oracular  statues ;  from  two  shrines  140 

Two  armies  shall  obtain  the  assurance  of 

One  victory?  is  it  not  indisputable 

That  two  contending  wills  can  never  lead  143 

[41] 


To  the  same  end?  and  being  opposite 

If  one  be  good  is  not  the  other  evil? 

Evil  in  God  is  inconceivable ;  we 

But  supreme  goodness  fails  among  the  Gods 

Without  their  union 

Demon. 

I  deny  yr  major. 
These  responses  are  means  towards  some  end  1*9 

Unfathomed  by  our  intellectual  beam. 
They  are  the  work  of  providence,  &  more 
The  battles  loss  may  profit  those  who  lose  152 

Than  victory  advantage  those  who  win 

Cyprian. 

That  I  admit ;  &  yet  that  God  ought  not 

Falshood  is  incompatible  with  Deity  135 

Assure  the  victory ;  it  w?  be  enough 

To  have  permitted  the  defeat — if  God 

Be  all  sight,  God  who  had  beheld  the  truth  iss 

Would  not  have  given  assurance  of  an  end 

Never  to  be  accomplished,  thus  although 

The  Deity  may  according  to  its  attributes  iei 

Be  well  distinguished  into  persons— yet 

Even  in  the  minutest  circumstance 

His  essence  must  be  one. — 

Demon. 

To  attain  the  end  W4 

The  affections  of  the  actors  in  the  scene 
Must  have  been  thus  influenced  by  his  voice. 


Cyprian. 

But  for  a  purpose  thus  subordinate  m 

He  might  have  employed  Genii,  good  or  evil 

A  sort  of  spirits  called  so  by  the  learned 

Who  roam  about  inspiring  good  or  evil  wo 

And  from  whose  influence  &  existence  we 

May  well  infer  our  immortality  .  .  . 

Thus  God  might  easily,  without  descent  its 

To  a  gross  falshood  in  his  proper  person 

Have  moved  the  affections  by  their  mediation 

To  the  just  point  .  .  . 

Demon. 

These  trifling  contradictions  i7« 
Do  not  suffice  to  impugn  the  unity 
Of  the  high  Gods:  in  things  of  great  importance 
They  still  appear  unanimous;  consider  179 

That  glorious  fabric  man— his  workmanship 
Is  stamped  with  one  conception— 

Cyprian. 

He  who  made  man 
Must  have  methinks  the  advantage  of  the  others :       182 
If  they  are  equal  might  not  they  have  risen 
In  opposition  to  the  work  &  being 

All  hands,  according  to  our  author  here,  185 

Have  still  destroyed  even  as  the  other  made 
And  if  equal  in  power,  if  only  unequal 
In  opportunity,  which  of  the  two  iss 

Will  remain  conqueror? 

US! 


Demon. 

On  impossible 
And  false  hypotheses,  there  can  be  built 
No  argument ;  say,  what  do  you  infer 
From  this  ? 

Cyprian. 

That  there  must  be  a  mighty  God 
Of  supreme  goodness  &  of  highest  grace 
All  sight  all  hands  all  truth,  infallible 
Without  an  equal  &  without  a  rival 
The  cause  of  all  things,  the  effect  of  nothing 
One  power  one  will  one  substance  &  one  essence 
And  in  whatever  persons,  one  or  two 
His  attributes  may  be  distinguished,  one 
Sovereign  power,  one  solitary  essence, 
One  cause  of  all  cause. 

[They  rise.] 

Demon. 

How  can  I  impugn 
So  clear  a  consequence. 

Cyprian. 

Do  you  regret 
My  victory— 

Demon. 

Who  but  regrets  a  check 
In  rivalry  of  wit?    I  could  reply 
And  urge  new  difficulties,  but  will  now 

C443 


Depart,  for  I  hear  steps  of  men  approaching  =oe 

And  it  is  time  that  I  should  now  pursue 
My  journey  to  the  city 

Cyprian. 
Go  in  peace. 

Demon. 

Remain  in  peace—  [Aside]  Since  thus  it  profits  him    209 
To  study,  I  will  wrap  his  senses  up 
In  sweet  oblivion  of  all  thought,  but  of 
A  piece  of  excellent  beauty;  &  as  I  212 

Have  power  given  me  to  wage  enmity 
Against  Justina's  soul,  I  will  extract 
From  one  effect  two  vengeances. 

(exit) 

Cyprian. 

I  never  215 

Met  a  more  learned  person— let  me  now 
Revolve  this  doubt  again  with  careful  mind. 

[He  reads] 

Leaving  the  urbane  and  intellectual  Cyprian  to 
the  brief  enjoyment  of  his  victory  over  the  Devil, 
before  the  World  and  the  Flesh  break  in  upon  his 
solitude  in  the  shape  of  those  two  turbulent  gentle- 
men Floro  and  Lelio,  we  will  go  on  with  our  record 
of  textual  variations.  In  line  62  two  unimportant 
openings,  And  and  Upon  this,  are  cancelled.  As 
the  last  word  in  line  67  thought  stands  cancelled  in 


favour  of  cares;  in  line  69  left  for  lost;  and  in  line 
71  curious  for  singular.  In  line  72  Mary's  tran- 
script reads  thus  have  lost,  and  her  editions  could 
lose,  while  in  line  73  the  transcript  reads  avenues 
and  vallies,  the  editions  avenues  and  green  paths. 
In  line  75  the  transcript  has  town  of  Antioch  for 
walls  of  Antioch.  After  line  78  Shelley  wrote  at 
first— 

But  as  it  now  is  late,  I  will  enter 

In  a  strange  city,  where  I  have  no  friends 

Until  [  .  .  . 

Seeing  that  this  did  not  give  his  author's  sense,  he 
did  not  think  it  worth  while,  just  to  please  us  in- 
quisitors, to  supply  the  word  not  before  enter,  de- 
manded by  metre  and  sense  alike,  but  just  crossed 
the  lines  through  and  passed  on.  At  the  close  of 
line  84  books  with  which  gives  place  to  books  in 
which.  In  line  86  the  metre  was  left  defective  in 
Cyprian :  Mary  made  it  good  in  her  transcript  by 
inserting  and  in  truth  before  I  feel ;  but  she  printed 
for  my  part,  I  feel;  while  in  the  next  line,  where 
Shelley  uses  the  school-girls'  phrase  sympathy  with 
such  pursuits,  she  wrote  in  in  the  transcript  but 
printed  with.  Line  92  in  Cyprian  shows  the  can- 
celled reading  And  even  then  know  so  little.  Line 
95  shows  the  cancelled  opening/  come  out  of;  and 
it  ends  clearly  with  the  sciences,  as  it  does  in  Mary's 
transcript,  though  in  the  printed  editions  up  to  1877 
the  the  was  omitted,  as  it  still  is  by  editors  who  mis- 

U63 


understand  Shelley's  metre.  This  is  really  another 
of  the  Fletcherian  triple  endings  which  contribute 
to  the  freedom  and  variety  of  Shelley's  blank  verse 
in  this  work.  He  had  written  this  fine  piece  of 
Satan's  bombast  thus— 

For  in  the  country  whence  I  come,  the  sciences 
Are  known  without  study  [, 

meaning,  no  doubt,  to  find  some  such  word  as  pre- 
liminary to  insert  in  the  gap;  but  finally  he  struck 
the  imperfect  line  out,  tried  Require  no  doctrine, 
and  then  substituted  teaching  for  doctrine.    Mary, 
whose  transcript  substitutes  learning,  had  merely,  I 
think,  misread  Shelley's  teaching,  the  t  of  which  is 
not  crossed,  though  the  word  is  written  well  enough 
otherwise.     In  the  original,  Calderon  makes  the 
Demon  say- 
Si,  que  de  una  patria  soy, 
donde  las  ciencias  mas  altas, 
sin  estudiarse,  se  saben. 

The  word  learning  still  stands  in  the  English  text; 
but  I  should  lean  to  the  substitution  of  teaching. 
It  is  to  be  noted  that  Shelley's  translation  is  at  the 
furthest  imaginable  point  from  slavish;  and  in  the 
very  next  speech  of  the  Demon  he  omits  the  reiter- 
ated boast  that  it  was  without  study  (sin  estudios) 
that  he  contested  the  Professorial  Chair,  a  speech 
in  which  I  should  find  it  necessary  to  restore  to  any 

U7l 


text  I  might  be  editing  an  additional  line  which  I 
have  found  in  Cyprian.  It  is  line  102  in  our  pres- 
ent numeration  and  makes  subsequent  lines  fail  of 
numerical  correspondence  with  the  printed  edi- 
tions.   Here  we  read 

And  thought  to  carry  it,  and  might  have  done 
For  I  had  many  votes 

and  in  Mary's  transcript  we  have 

The  chair  of  the  most  high  Professor  there 
And  thought  to  carry  it 
For  I  had  many  votes  [. 

There  is  a  cross  against  the  short  line,  doubtless  to 
indicate  some  difficulty  which  she  experienced  in 
dealing  with  the  passage:  curiously  enough,  Shel- 
ley drew  his  pen  through  And  thought  to  carry  it, 
which  renders  admirably  Calderon's  y  pense  lle- 
varla,  but  left  uncancelled  the  somewhat  colloquial 
might  have  done,,  which  has  no  literal  equivalent  in 
Calderon.    Mary  printed 

The  chair  of  the  most  high  Professorship, 
And  obtained  many  votes  [ ; 

and  so  the  text  remains  till  today.  Professor  there 
was  clearly  a  mere  misreading,  for  the  syllable 
ship,  though  really  unquestionable  in  Cyprian,  is 
not  well  written;  and  damage  is  done  to  the  texture 
of  the  verse  by  And  obtained.  The  Spanish  is 
porque  tuve  muchos  votos,  where  even  the  question 

C483 


between  porque  and  and  is  of  more  consequence  to 
the  sense  than  that  between  tuve  and  had.  After 
line  105  Shelley  cancelled  two  openings 

Say  what  thou  knowest 
and 

Respect  [ing?] 

and  then  wrote 

Let  us  refer  it  to  dispute  respecting 
That  which  thou  knowest  best 

wherein  he  struck  out  thou  knowest  and  wrote 
under  the  line  you  know  the  best.  Mary  copied 
that  correctly;  but  she  printed  you  know  best  with- 
out the  essential  the}  which  was  not  restored  till 
1877,  when  her  transcript  swam  up  to  the  surface 
of  Time's  whirlpool.  Probably  no  one  will  ven- 
ture to  call  line  109  an  Alexandrine  because  of  its 
triple  ending  with  the  contrary;  but  if  such  a 
prophet  should  arise  let  him  bethink  himself  of  the 
original  so  exactly  rendered— 

yo  tomare  la  contraria. 

Shelley  was  at  some  pains  to  do  justice  to  the 
Devil's  portentous  recollection  of  the  exact  words 
of  Pliny:  line  116  was  begun  at  the  foot  of  Page 
III  26  v.  thus— 

God  is  a  supreme  excellence  [ ; 
C493 


but  excellence  was  struck  out  and  goodness  ones 
written  below  it :  then  that  was  cancelled  and  the 
half-line  altered  to 

God  is  one  supreme  goodness 

after  which,  the  page  being  full,  the  poet  turned 
over  and  wrote  one  pure  essence  at  the  top  of  page 
III  27  v.  Mary's  transcript  starts  this  quotation 
from  Pliny  with  God  is  highest  goodness ;  but  from 
what  source  the  verse  was  thus  damaged  no  evi- 
dence is  before  the  court:  she  printed  the  passage 
correctly  according  to  Cyprian.  Shelley's  all 
hands  in  line  117  looks  at  least  as  much  like  all 
hearing',  but  it  is  inconceivable  that  he  could  have 
rendered  todo  manos  by  all  hearing.  The  passage 
(lines  1 19-126)  in  which  Cyprian  announces  his 
failure  to  "recognize  among  the  Gods  /  The  God 
defined  by  Plinius"  is  one  of  admirable  freedom  as 
regards  the  movement  of  the  verse,  and  shows  but 
little  castigation  in  the  draft:  Tainted  with  human 
weakness  (124)  gives  place  to  Tainted  with  mortal 
weakness,  and  so  avoids  the  poverty  of  language 
which  would  have  been  chargeable  against  the  em- 
ployment of  human  in  line  124  and  the  cognate 
noun  humanity  in  the  next  line  but  one;  and  at  the 
close  of  the  speech  (lines  125-6)  the  openings 

Can  he  be  called  supremely  good 

and  the  hesitant 

Can  it  can  supreme 

C503 


were  rejected  before  the  poet  reached  his 

Can  supreme  goodness  be  consistent  with 
The  passions  of  humanity? 

But  perhaps  the  finest  thing  about  the  passage  in 
English  is  quite  another  kind  of  freedom  than  that 
of  the  verse's  movement.    Calderon  makes  Cyprian 

Say_  No  hallar 

el  Dios  de  quien  Plinio  trata ; 
que  si  ha  de  ser  bondad  suma, 
aun  a  Jupiter  le  falta 
suma  bondad,  pues  le  vemos, 
que  es  pecaminoso  en  tantas 
ocasiones;  Danae  hable 
rendida,  Europa  robada; 
pues  como  en  suma  bondad, 
cuyas  acciones  sagradas 
avian  de  ser  divinas, 
caben  passiones  humanas? 

The  firm  hand  with  which  Shelley  drops  the  par- 
ticular fables  of  Danae  and  Europa  ("Witness  the 
yielding  Danae,  the  ravished  Europa!")  overboard 
and  generalizes  the  divine  peccadillos  under  the 
noble  phrase  tainted  with  mortal  weakness  leaves 
nothing  to  desire;  and  the  answer  of  Satan  finds  an 
almost  equally  bold  and  noble  rendering:  Calderon 
makes  the  Demon  say— 

Essas  son  falsas  historias, 
en  que  las  letras  profanas, 


con  los  nombres  de  los  dioses, 
entendieron  disfrazada 
la  Moral  Philosophia. 

Shelley  makes  him  say— 

The  wisdom 

Of  the  old  world  masked  under  names  of  Gods, 

The  attributes  of  nature  &  of  man 

A  sort  of  popular  philosophy.— 

Strictly  speaking  this  admirable  reading  is  not  to 

be  found  in  Cyprian;  and  yet,  strictly  speaking 

from  another  point  of  view,  it  is ;  and  it  is  a  reading 

which  I  am  keen  to  see  taking  its  place  in  the  text 

instead  of  what  I  cannot  but  think  is  unauthorized 

save  by  Calderon,  to  wit  masked  with  the  names  of 

Gods.    What  happened  was  this :  Shelley  wrote  in 

Cyprian—  . 

1  he  wisdom 

Of  the  old  world,  under  the  names  of  Gods, 

The  attributes  of  nature  &  of  man 

A  sort  of  popular  philosophy.— 

His  writing,  as  usual  in  this  book,  sloped  very 
much  down  to  the  right,  and  was  rather  large.  On 
a  verso  page,  awkwardly  rounded  on  the  right-hand 
side— the  page  is  III  27  v.— a  line  like  this  will  not 
come  into  the  width  of  the  page  unbroken;  and 
he  wrote  this  line  thus— 

Of  the  old  world,  under 

the 

names 

of  Gods, 


and,  arriving  at  the  end  of  the  speech  two  lines 
further  on,  he  discovered  that  the  sense  was  uncom- 
pleted, the  verb,  intended  to  have  come  further  on, 
having  been  left  out.  So  he  went  back  and  wrote 
masked  over  the  first  bit  of  his  fine  line,  meaning  to 
strike  out  the  and  leave  it  a  fine  line;  but  by  sheer 
misadventure  he  struck  out,  as  he  did  scores  of 
times,  the  wrong  word,  under,  and  left  the  line 
reading 

Of  the  old  world,  masked  the  names  of  God, 

which  is  as  imperfect  metrically  as  the  sentence  is 
grammatically.  It  is  inconceivable  that  his  sec- 
ond journey  over  that  little  speech  was  thus  wasted : 
of  course  he  may  have  meant  to  insert  with  after 
masked;  but  if  something  is  to  be  assumed,  why  not 
choose  the  best  something?  Mary's  transcript 
opens  with  the  rejected  reading 

The  wisdom 
Of  the  old  world  under  the  names  of  Gods 
The  attributes  [. 

Then  she  struck  out  The  attributes,  put  one  of  her 
cautionary  crosses  against  Gods,  and  left  a  blank. 
When  she  prepared  the  copy  used  by  the  printer  of 
the  Posthumous  Poems,  she  put  masked  with  names 
of  Gods,  having  perhaps  turned  to  the  original  and 
observed  Calderon's 

con  los  nombres  de  los  Dioses, 

C533 


and  so  the  text  has  remained,  up  to  the  present  day, 
less  excellent  than  I  am  morally  certain  Shelley 
meant  to  have  it  in  Cyprian.  Is  that  your  answer, 
Mary  Shelley?  If  so,  I  say— with  your  husband 
and  Cyprian— 

This  reply  will  not  satisfy  me. 

In  the  next  speech,  which  begins  with  those  six  ap- 
posite words,  Shelley  was,  though  not  by  that  line, 
somewhat  exercised,  for  before  arriving  at  lines 
1 31-2— 

Such  awe  is  due  to  the  high  name  of  God 
That  ill  should  never  be  imputed— then  [, 

he  had  written  and  struck  out 

Such  is  the  reveren[ce] 

Such  reverence  ought  the  name  of  God  to  ask 

In  those  who 

who,  utter,  that  crimes 
Ought  never  though  false 

and  then  had  ended  his  ultimate  couplet  with  an 

and  to  be  struck  out- 
Such  awe  is  due  to  the  high  name  of  God 
That  ill  should  never  be  imputed— and  [  .  .  . 

Here  again  I  must  qualify  the  literality  of  the  term 
"written  and  struck  out"  by  adding  "or  intended  to 
be  struck  out;"  for  strictly  speaking  several  words 


in  the  first  group  stand  boldly  out  uncancelled  and 
equally  unmeaning.  The  last  and,  however,  was 
struck  out  in  favour  of  then.  That  parenthetic 
though  false  had,  of  course,  to  be  rejected  for  the 
sake  of  consistency,  for  he  had  not  rendered  the 
Devil's  magniloquent  phrase 

Essas  son  falsas  historias, 

as  we  have  already  seen.  In  line  133  we  find  an- 
other case  for  a  change  in  the  established  text— not 
an  urgent  case,  it  is  true.    Shelley  wrote— 

Examining  the  question  strictlier 

and  then  altered  strictlier  to  with  more  strictness. 
The  word  strictness  is  not  very  plain;  but  I  see  no 
doubt  about  it.  Mary,  however,  both  wrote  and 
printed  with  more  care;  and  that  has  been  the  read- 
ing ever  since.  In  line  134,  the  first  reading  in 
Cyprian  was  the  Gods  should,  which  Shelley  al- 
tered to  would.  Mary  put  would  in  the  transcript, 
but  printed  should,  which  disfigured  the  text  from 
1824  till  1877.  In  line  135  he  wrote  being  su- 
premely good,  and  judiciously  altered  being  to 
were  they;  and  in  line  136  would  stands  cancelled 
in  favour  of  does.  The  lack  of  the  word  that  in 
line  137  was  Shelley's  fault,  and  disfigured  the 
work  till  Rossetti  put  the  word  in  in  1870.  The 
never  in  line  143  is  plainly  written;  and  the  substi- 


tution  of  ever  in  Mary's  transcript  must  have  been 
a  mere  slip.  For  line  145  Shelley  was  going  to 
write 

Must  not  the  one  be  good,  the  other  evil  ? 

But  seeing  the  inconsequence  of  the  reasoning, — 
which  does  not  exist  in  the  original  Spanish,— he 
stopped  when  he  got  as  far  as  good,  and  very  prop- 
erly wrote 

If  one  be  good  is  not  the  other  evil  ? 

Before  line  147  came  out  rightly,  he  made  two  false 
starts,  And  among  the  Gods  and  For  su  (the  second 
being,  I  presume,  the  record  of  an  intention  to 
write  For  supreme  etc. ) .  In  the  Demon's  denial  of 
Cyprian's  "major"  there,  the  fine  line  (150) 

Unfathomed  by  our  intellectual  beam 

has  a  fine  variant,  rejected,  perhaps,  because  of  the 
difficulty  of  reading  the  line  otherwise  than  as  an 
Alexandrine — 

Impenetrable  by  our  intellectual  beam. 

The  next  line  ( 151 )  has  a  false  start,  //  th\_ey~\,  and 
lines  152  and  153  show  a  cancelled  reading- 
more 

The  loss  of  victory  may  profit  those 

Who  lose;  than  their  success  [. 

In  Cyprian's  rejoinder  the  parenthetic  line  (the 
parentheses  by  the  by  are  not  given)  — 

CS63 


Falshood  is  incompatible  with  Deity 
has  two  forerunners — 

For  direct  falshood  suits  not  Deity 
and 

For  direct  falshood  becomes  not  Deity  [ ; 

and  in  the  second  half  of  line  156,  which  reads  it 
would  be  enough  (like  the  transcript  and  the  estab- 
lished text) ,  there  are  two  trials,  though  he  mi[ght] 
and  it  should  be  enough.  Cyprian  confirms  the 
reading  which  I  got  from  Mary's  copy  in  1877  for 

line  1  c8 — 

if  God 

Be  all  sight,  God  who  had  beheld  the  truth, 
perfecting  the  line,  imperfect  till  then  in  print, 
Be  all  sight,  God  who  beheld  the  truth, 

but,  before  getting  the  line  right,  Shelley  had  re- 
jected the  opening  Indee[d]  and  had  sketched  the 
line  thus— 

Be  all  sight,  God  must  have  beheld  the  end 

and  altered  must  to  who,  have  to  had,  and  end  to 
truth.  It  looks  likely— for  the  word  The  stands  in 
solitary  disfigurement  by  two  strokes  immediately 
below— that  he  meant  the  lines  to  run  thus  at  first— 

if  God 

Indeed  be  all  truth,  God  must  have  beheld 
The  end  &c. 

C573 


Before  writing  line  159 — 

Would  not  have  given  assurance  of  an  end 
he  wrote  and  rejected 

And  )        .  ,>not  have  ass Tured]. 
( would ) 

There  is  no  trace  of  Mary's  manuscript  reading,  re- 
ward for  an  end :  she  printed  an  end. 

In  the  Fletcherian  triple-ended  line  161, 

The  Deity  may  according  to  its  attributes  [, 

not  contented  with  the  handsome  allowance  of  thir- 
teen syllables,  he  put  an  extra  letter  into  Deity, 
spelling  it  for  once  Deiety.  The  word  its  is  per- 
fectly plain;  and,  had  I  in  1877  had  it  from  Cyprian 
directly  instead  of  through  the  transcript  of  Mary, 
I  should  have  adopted  it  in  preference  to  the  estab- 
lished his,  even  though  His  is  used  lower  down,  in 
line  164.  In  Cyprian's  speech  about  the  Genii,  at 
the  end  of  line  173,  Shelley  wrote  his  word  so  badly 
on  the  round  of  the  back  margin  (it  is  a  verso  page, 
III  29  v.)  that  I  cannot  state  positively  whether  he 
meant  to  alter  descent  into  descending  or  descend- 
ing into  descent.  Up  to  1877  the  passage  read 
thus— 

Thus  God  might  easily,  without  descending 
To  a  gross  falsehood  in  his  proper  person, 

C583 


but  finding  descent  in  Mary's  manuscript,  and 
thinking  it  the  better  reading,  I  adopted  it.  Con- 
firmed by  Shelley's  own  authority,  I  should  cer- 
tainly maintain  it  in  the  absence  of  a  better,  a 
maturer,  holograph.  In  line  175  Shelley  scrawled 
another  word  on  the  round  of  the  same  page  (III 
29  v.)  in  such  a  way  as  to  leave  a  doubt.  The  line 
has  stood  up  to  the  present  time  thus — 

Have  moved  the  affections  by  this  mediation  [. 

Shelley's  doubtful  word  is  the  penultimate,  which 
is  certainly  more  like  their  than  this,  but  might  be 
read  for  either  the  one  or  the  other.  On  the  mere 
evidence  of  handwriting  my  decision  was  decidedly 
in  favour  of  their]  then  it  seemed  to  me  reasonable 
that  their  mediation  was  meant  to  refer  us  directly 
and  concretely  to  the  "sort  of  spirits"  called  Genii, 
and  that  this  mediation  would  have  been  thinner 
and  less  direct.  Mary's  copy  makes  this  of  it;  but 
I  notice  now  for  the  first  time  that,  whereas  Shelley 
wrote  medition  and  struck  it  out  to  put  mediation 
in  due  form  and  very  plainly,  Mary,  with  but  little 
excuse  so  far  as  the  Note  Book  is  concerned,  wrote 
mediator.  Hence  it  seems  to  me  that  Calderon  had 
better  have  the  casting  vote ;  and,  as  the  whole  small 
speech  is  a  peculiarly  delicate  and  interesting  piece 
of  work,  I  transcribe  it. 


1 


Cypr.     Quando  importara 
el  moverlos,  nenios  ay, 


que  buenos,  y  malos  llaman 
todos  los  Doctos,  que  son 
unos  espiritus,  que  andan 
entre  nosotros,  dictando 
las  obras  buenas,  y  malas, 
argumento  que  assegura 
la  immortalitad  del  alma, 
y  bien  pudiera  esse  Dios 
con  ellos,  sin  que  llegara 
a  mostrar  que  mentir  sabe, 
mover  afectos. 

The  position  of  con  ellos  is  conclusive.  In  line  177 
the  word  not  is  unintentionally  repeated;  and  the 
absence  of  a  division  in  line  178  is  also  of  course 
accidental;  Mary  properly  transcribed  the  line 
with  a  semicolon  at  Gods,  so  as  to  link  the 
unanimity  of  the  Gods  with  things  of  great  im- 
portance, as  Calderon  did  and  as  Shelley  clearly 
meant  to  do.  Here  there  is  in  Cyprian  a  rejected 
variant,  heavenly  natures  for  the  high  Gods.  At 
the  break  in  line  181,  between  the  Demon's  part  of 
the  dialogue  and  Cyprian's,  Shelley  wrote  with  a 
different  pen  and  ink  what  seems  to  be  a  note,  and 
has  no  textual  pretensions  whatever— 

If  this  were  the  work  of  one  of  many  [ ; 

but  Mary  in  her  transcript  introduces  (with  a  dif- 
ference) this  jotting  for  the  sense  of 

Luego  si  este  fue  un  solo, 
C6o3 


and  makes  Cyprian  open  on  the  Demon  with 

If  this  be  the  work  of  one,  Man's  maker 

Must  have  methinks  the  advantage  of  the  others. 

Our  text,  the  Cyprian  text,  is  quite  satisfactory  at 
this  point— He  who  made  man  does  very  well;  but 
Mary  printed  Who  made  man  (without  the  He), 
which  is  stronger  both  for  style  and  for  metre ;  one 
would  like,  however,  to  know  her  authority  both 
for  this  good  reading  of  1824  (the  established  read- 
ing) and  for  the  clumsy  reading  of  the  transcript. 
Nevertheless,  I  would  not  disturb  the  current  ver- 
sion at  this  point  on  the  sole  authority  of  Cyprian. 
In  line  183  Cyprian  and  Mary's  copy  agree  in 
transposing  they  and  not,  but  the  printed  texts  read 
they  not.  Cyprian's  reading  of  lines  187  to  189  is 
plain  enough  in  its  result;  but  187  is  distinctly  in- 
ferior to  either  of  the  printed  texts;  and  the  whole 
passage  gave  Shelley  a  little  trouble.  He  wrote 
two  openings  for  187,  And  who  and  And  if  these, 
and  then,  without  properly  cancelling  either,  wrote 
and  left  standing  equal  in  power,  if  only  unequal. 
He  began  line  188  with  In  the  occasion  of  and 
line  189  with  Will  not  at  last,  and  then  struck  out 
the  occasion  of  for  opportunity,  which  of  the  two 
and  not  at  last  for  remain  conqueror}  Mary's 
transcript  reads 

If  equal  in  their  power,  unequal  only 


and  her  printed  text 

If  equal  in  their  power,  and  only  unequal 
In  opportunity, 

and  in  1877  I  gave  the  preference  to  her  written 
text,  which  has  remained  in  vogue  till  now.  In 
line  190  Cyprian  reads  hypotheses,  which  is  clearly 
more  correct  than  the  established  hypothesis  (due 
to  Mary),  and  should  take  its  place  in  the  text. 
In  line  192  Cyprian  shows  two  rejected  variants, 


That  there  must  be  \    * 

(a  mos 


most  high  God  $ . 

The  substitution  of  power  for  goodness  in  line  193 
in  Mary's  transcript  must  have  been  accidental. 
She  printed  goodness;  and  the  Spanish  is  suma 
bondad.  In  line  200  there  are  two  unimportant 
flaws,  Sovereign  being  written  Soveigne  and  soli- 
tary figuring  as  solintary.  Line  201  shows  the 
variants  A  single  cause  of  and  One  cause  of  all 
things,  both  rejected.  Mary's  copy  follows  the  in- 
ferior rejected  reading  things,  but  she  printed  One 
cause  of  all  cause,  though  the  second  cause  is  not 
very  nicely  written  in  Cyprian.  In  the  comple- 
ment of  line  201  in  the  Demon's  reply  there  is  a 
cancelled  alternative,  reply  for  impugn :  in  202  feel 
is  struck  out  for  regret,  and  in  203  defeat  for  a 
check.  In  204-5  tne  variant  and  although  still  / 
Something  is  rejected;  and  in  the  Demon's  aside, 
line  210,  by  is  twice  cancelled  after  study,  and 

C623 


wrapt  corrected  to  wrap.  We  now  arrive  at  the 
interrupted  and  interrupting  duel  of  Lelio  and 
Floro. 

Scene  I  (C) 

[Enter  Lelio  and  Floro.] 

Lelio. 

Here  stop— these  toppling  rocks  &  tangled  boughs     21s 
Impenetrable  by  the  noonday  beam 
Shall  be  sole  witnesses  of  what  we — 

Floro. 

Draw — 

If  there  were  words,  here  is  the  place  for  deeds         221 

Lelio. 

Thou  needest  not  instruct  me, — well  I  know 
That  in  the  field,  the  silent  tongue  of  steel 
Speaks  thus. — 

Cyprian. 

Ha  what  is  this.    Lelio  Floro  224 

Be  it  enough  that  Cyprian  stands  between  you 
Although  unarmed — 

Lelio. 

Whence  comest  thou  to  stand 
Between  me  &  my  vengeance? 

Floro. 

From  what  rocks         227 
And  desart  cells? — 

C633 


Enter  M[oscon]  &  C[larin.] 

Moscon. 

Run,  run,  for  where  we  left  my  master  I 
Now  hear  the  clash  of  swords. 

Clarin. 

I  never  229 

Run  to  approach  things  of  this  sort,  but  only 
To  avoid  them — Sir.    Sir— 

Cyprian. 

Be  silent  fellows — What  two  friends  who  are  232 

In  blood  &  fame  the  eyes  &  hope  of  Antioch 

One  of  the  noble  race  of  the  Colalti 

The  other  son  o'  the  Governor,  adventure  235 

And  cast  away,  on  some  slight  cause  no  doubt 

Two  lives,  the  honour  of  their  country. 

Lelio. 

Cyprian 
Although  my  high  respect  towards  yl  person  23s 

Holds  now  my  sword  suspended,  thou  canst  not 
Restore  it  to  the  slumber  of  the  scabbard. 
Thou  knowest  more  of  science  than  the  duel  241 

For  when  two  men  of  honour  take  the  field 
No  [counsel]  or  respect  can  make  them  friends 
But  one  must  die  in  the  dispute. 

Floro. 

I  pray  244 

That  you  depart  hence  with  yl  people  and 

C643 


Leave  us  to  finish  what  we  have  begun 
Without  advantage — 

Cyprian. 

Though  you  may  imagine  247 

That  I  know  little  of  the  laws  of  duel 
What  vanity  &  valour  instituted; 

You  are  in  error;  by  my  birth,  I  am  250 

Held  no  less  than  yourselves  to  know  the  limits 
Of  honour  &  of  infamy;  nor  has  study 
Quenched  the  free  spirit  which  [first  ordered]  them  253 
And  thus  to  me  as  to  one  well  experienced 
In  the  false  quicksands  of  the  sea  of  honour 
You  may  entrust  the  merits  of  the  case  25a 

And  if  I  should  perceive  in  your  relation 
That  either  has  the  right  to  satisfaction 
From  the  other,  I  give  you  my  word  of  honour  259 

To  leave  you. — 

Lelio. 

Under  this  condition  then 
[I  will  relate  the  cause  and  you  will  cede 
And  must]  confess  the  impossibility  262 

Of  compromise— for  the  same  lady  is 
Beloved  by  Floro  &  myself — 

Floro. 

It  seems 
Much  to  me  that  the  light  of  day  should  look  265 

Upon  the  idol  of  my  heart— but  he- 
Leave  us  to  fight  according  to  thy  word. 


Cyprian. 

Permit  one  question  further;  is  the  lady  268 

Impossible  to  hope  or  not? 

Lelio. 

She  is 
So  excellent  that  if  the  light  of  day 
Should  excite  Floro's  jealousy,  it  were  271 

Without  just  cause,  for  even  the  light  of  day 
Trembles  to  gaze  on  her — 


Cyprian. 

,  marry  her  - 

Would  you  for  your 

Floro. 

Such  is  my  confidence 

Cyprian. 

you  .  . 

Lelio. 

274 


Oh  would  that  I  could  lift  my  hope 
So  high,  for  though  she  is  extremely  poor 
Her  virtue  is  her  dowry. 

Cyprian. 

And  if  you  both  277 

Would  marry  her,  is  [it]  not  weak  &  vain 
Culpable  &  unworthy  thus  beforehand 
To  slur  her  honour — What  will  the  world  say  [  ?       280 

C663 


In  this  section  of  Scene  I  the  texture  of  the  verse 
is  less  firm  than  in  the  previous  parts,  and  it  is  more 
obvious  than  elsewhere  that  Mary  was  right  in 
saying  it  had  not  received  the  author's  final  correc- 
tions. The  number  of  unemphatic  words  coming 
at  the  ends  of  lines  would  certainly  have  struck 
Shelley  on  going  over  the  sketch;  and  so  would 
other  laxities.  The  cancellings,  too,  are  not  gen- 
erally of  much  interest.  In  line  218  these  rocks 
preceded  these  toppling  rocks.  The  word  here  in 
line  221  supports  the  established  reading  against 
the  this  of  Mary's  copy.  That  copy  has  a  slightly 
different  reading  from  that  of  Cyprian  for  the  re- 
turn of  Moscon  and  Clarin: 

Mosc.    Run !  run !  for  where  I  left  my  master,  I 
Now  hear  the  clash  of  swords. 

Clar.     I  never 
Run  to  approach  things  of  this  sort, 
But  only  to  avoid  them 

Clar.  &  Mosc.     Sir! 

This  joint  utterance  of  one  word  by  Clarin  and 
Moscon  follows  Calderon,  save  that  he  has  a  note 
of  interrogation  instead  of  a  note  of  exclamation: 

Mosc.  y  Clar.    Sefior? 

The  /  left  for  we  left  Mary  set  to  rights  in  printing 
the  work;  but  then  she  also  altered  /  now  hear  to 
We  hear,  reading,  detrimentally  to  sense  and 
metre— 

CM 


Run,  run !  for  where  we  left  my  master, 
We  hear  the  clash  of  swords. 

Shelley  himself  wrote  Run,  for  and  then  struck  out 
for  in  favour  of  another  run ;  but  he  left  the  passage 
quite  clearly  written,  as  he  did  the  little  noblesse 
oblige  sermon  of  Cyprian  to  the  combatants.    He 
certainly  wrote  race  of  the  Colalti,  and  son  o'  the 
Governor;  and  Mary  copied  those  words  correctly, 
although  I  thought  in  1877,  as  I  do  not  in  19 10, 
that  Colalti  in  her  copy  might  be  read  for  Colatti ; 
■   hence  I  cannot  offer  any  explanation  worth  having 
of  her  printed  reading- 
One  of  the  noble  men  of  the  Colatti, 
The  other  son  of  the  Governor, 

'.for  Shelley's  rejected  reading  in  the  first  of  those 
'two  lines  (line  234),  One  son  of,  does  not  give  us 
the  least  help.    In  line  238  there  is  another  rejected 
reading,  Although  my  deep  respect  for.    In  trans- 
lating the  following  passage,  Shelley  left  a  blank  in 

.    Cyprian: 

y  no  alcanza, 

que  a  dos  nobles  en  el  campo, 

no  ay  respeto  que  les  haga 

amigos,  pues  solo  es  medio 

morir  uno  en  la  demanda. 

He  wrote 

For  when  two  men  of  honour  take  the  field 
No  or  respect  can  make  them  friends 

But  one  must  die  in  the  dispute. 

C68] 


Mary  copied  this  speech  exactly,  filling  the  blank 
with  the  word  reasoning.  In  the  Posthumous 
Poems  she  followed  Cyprian  even  in  leaving  the 
blank  space,  and  read  No  [  ]  or,  but  printed 

pursuit  as  the  last  word  of  the  speech.  In  later 
editions  she  read  No  counsel  nor.  It  was  not  till 
1877  that  the  right  word,  dispute,  in  line  244  was 
given  from  the  transcript.  In  Cyprian's  next 
speech  (line  247)  there  is  a  cancelled  reading  in 
the  Note  Book,  Though  it  may  appear  for  Though 
you  may  imagine ;  and  in  line  249  the  initial  word 
is  unquestionably  though  indefensibly  What  in- 
stead of  the  Which  of  the  established  text.  In  line 
253  the  second  word  is  doubtful,  because  it  is  not 
obvious  whether  in  writing  one  word  over  another 
Shelley  meant  the  or  my  to  have  the  upper  hand— 
whether,  in  fact,  he  meant 

Quenched  the  free  spirit  which  them 

or 

Quenched  my  free  spirit  which  them  [  .  .  . 

Mary's  transcript  reads  thus — 

nor  has  study 
Quenched  my  free  spirit  which  loves  both  books  &  arms 
And  thus  to  me,  as  one  who  will  expound 
In  the  false 
You  may  intrust  the  merits  of  the  case  [. 

The  words  first  ordered  which  I  have  inserted  be- 
tween hooks  are  from  the  established  text,  as  are 


the  bracketed  lines  in  the  next  speech  of  Lelio 
(lines  261  and  262) .  For  line  258  Cyprian  has  the 
cancelled  opening  That  one  has.  Where  Shelley 
has  left  a  blank,  Mary  also  reads  imperfectly  in  the 
transcript,  but  thus— 

I  will  relate  the  cause  of  our 

And  you'll  confess  th'  impossibility 

Of  compromise  [. 

In  line  267  Lelio  ends  with  thy  word;  but  he  was 
to  have  said  word  of  honour,  the  word  Of  being 
written  as  the  beginning  of  another  line  and  struck 
out.  In  line  268  more  is  struck  out  in  favour  of 
further,  and  in  line  270  even  in  favour  of  if.  In 
271  Florio  stands  (accidentally,  no  doubt,)  in  place 
of  Floro;  and  in  the  part  of  line  273  belonging  to 
Cyprian  And  is  cancelled  to  give  place  to  Would. 
In  line  279  the  opening  Unworthy  &  disho  is  re- 
jected; and  in  280  To  slur  is  quite  plain,  though 
Mary's  copy,  ending  abruptly  at  the  same  point  as 
Cyprian,  reads  stain  for  slur.  In  the  established 
text  there  are  two  more  lines — 

If  one  should  slay  the  other,  and  if  she 
Should  afterwards  espouse  the  murderer? 

There  is  also  the  following  epitome  of  the  sequel : — 

The  rivals  agree  to  refer  their  quarrel  to  CYP- 
RIAN; who  in  consequence  visits  JUSTINA,  and  be- 
comes enamoured  of  her:  she  disdains  him,  and  he 
retires  to  a  solitary  sea-shore. 

OH 


The  second  of  the  scenes  from  El  Magico  as 
published  opens  with  sixty-one  lines  depicting  the 
sudden  passion  of  Cyprian  for  Justina,  his  offer  of 
his  soul  to  the  Infernal  Powers  in  exchange  for  the 
possession  of  his  innamorata,  the  Demon's  accept- 
ance of  the  offer,  and  the  delusion  of  Cyprian  by 
means  of  a  storm  and  shipwreck  raised  by  the 
Demon's  magic  power.  In  Note  Book  III  the 
drafting  of  the  translation  opens  at  a  later  point 
than  the  sixty-one  lines  in  question,  with  the  cry  of 
the  imaginary  shipwrecked  people, 

We  are  all  lost  [  I  — 

and  much  labour  was  expended  upon  the  irregular 
rhymed  metre  in  which  Cyprian  describes  what  he 
sees  after  the  phantom  ship  has  gone  down.  Shel- 
ley began  on  page  III  15  r.  by  writing  and  striking 
out  the  word  and.  Then  he  wrote  All  with  a  kind 
of  flourish,  and  below  it  We  are  all  lost;  and  the 
speech  of  "the  Demon  (within)"  immediately  fol- 
lowing was  translated,  but  not  assigned  to  the 
Demon,  thus:  — 

Upon  this  plank  will  I 
Save  myself  on  the  shore  &  there  accomplish  [  .   .   . 

This  he  struck  out  and  wrote  centrally  below  the 
line  the  word  and  again,  only  to  cancel  it  again,  and 
retranslate  the  Demon's  speech  thus:— 

Now  from  this  plank  will  I 
Pass  to  the  land  &  thus  fulfil  my  purpose  [. 

C70 


It  is  here  that  Shelley's  fastidious  craftsmanship 
shows  itself  notably  in  one  of  these  admirable 
examples  of  restless  strife  after  perfection  that  we 
so  often  encounter  in  these  Note  Books,  as  else- 
where in  his  drafts,  whether  of  original  or  of  trans- 
lated work.  The  first  speech  of  Cyprian  on  this 
apparition  of  his  "ghostly  enemy"  was  originally 
begun  as  follows : 

Cyprian. 

As  in  contempt  of  the  fierce  elements 

A  man  comes  forth  in  safety,  while  the  vessel  [  .  .  . 

Before  he  had  bethought  himself  of  the  verb  to 
which  vessel  was  to  be  the  nominative  other  ideas 
came  flooding  in :  first  he  substituted  for  fierce  ele- 
ments the  expression  resounding  storm,  and  next 
struck  that  out  in  favour  of  elemental  rage,  at  the 
same  time  abandoning  his  nominative  vessel  for  a 
possessive  ship's,  to  follow  it  up  with  the  lines 

Great  form  is,  in  its  watery  eclipse 
Obliterated  from  the  Ocean's  light 

and  then  altering  its  to  a  and  cancelling  light  in 
favour,  successively,  of  bosom,  forehead,  and  page, 
so  as  to  complete  a  duly  rhymed  quatrain.  The 
next  two  splendid  lines  have  a  very  spontaneous 
look;  but  with  the  line  after  he  got  stranded  for 
want  of  something  to  fill  a  gap,  and  we  read  to  the 
end  of  the  tiny  rhymed  speech  thus— 

C72  3 


And  round  its  wreck  the  huge  sea  monsters  sit 
In  horrid  conclave,  &  the  whisking  wave 
Is  to  its  spoils  a  grave. 

Of  this  not  very  promising  last  line  he  evidently 
despaired  of  making  much,  and  so  abandoned  it 
and  ended  triumphantly  with 

Is  heaped  over  its  carcase  like  a  grave. 

Thus  he  had  produced  with  some  slight  verbal  ex- 
ceptions the  text  published  by  Mary  Shelley  in 
1824  in  the  Posthumous  Poems]  and  it  was  not  very 
surprising  that  she  was  satisfied  with  so  admirable 
a  result,  although  it  should  have  been  a  matter  for 
suspicion  to  her  that  the  rhyme-word  sit  had  no 
fellow.  Such  a  suspicion  would  perhaps  have  in- 
duced her  to  examine  scrupulously  the  scribblings 
on  the  opposite  page  of  the  Note  Book,  III  14  v.; 
which  would  have  revealed  that  the  rhymelessness 
of  the  huge  sea  monsters  had  not  satisfied  Shelley 
if  it  did  her.  To  recapitulate,  this  is  what  she 
found:— 

Cyprian. 

As  in  contempt  of  the  elemental  rage 

A  man  comes  forth  in  safety,  while  the  ship's 

Great  form  is,  in  a  watery  eclipse 

Obliterated  from  the  Oceans  page 

And  round  its  wreck  the  huge  sea  monsters  sit 

In  horrid  conclave,  &  the  whisking  wave 

Is  heaped  over  its  carcase  like  a  grave. 

1721 


In  printing  this  passage  Mary  misread  the  rather 
badly  written  initial  word  of  the  sixth  line  and  also, 
in  my  opinion,  the  penultimate,  further  substituting 
Are  for  Is  in  the  seventh  line,  and  printed  the  two 
lines  thus— 

A  horrid  conclave,  and  the  whistling  wave 
Are  heaped  over  its  carcase,  like  a  grave. 

It  is  possible  that  she  had  another  manuscript,  espe- 
cially as  she  reads  scheme  for  purpose  at  the  end  of 
the  Demon's  little  speech ;  but  I  do  not  think  Shel- 
ley would  have  been  likely,  in  making  another 
manuscript,  to  abandon  the  fruits  of  his  labour  con- 
tinued on  the  page  probably  regarded  by  Mary  as 
a  mere  jumble  of  abandoned  draftings,  which  it 
looks  uncommonly  like.  Having  discovered  that 
he  had  no  rhyme  to  sit,  and  probably  also  mislik- 
ing  the  undramatic  opening  As  in  contempt,  he 
began  on  page  III  14  v.  thus— 

From  terrors  greater  than  the  [  ]  Sea 

A  man  as  in  contempt  of  it[, 

of  which  he  struck  out  the  first  line,  including  some 
obscurely  written  word  in  the  gap  which  I  have 
left;  and  he  also  cancelled  A  man,  writing  over  the 
first  of  the  two  lines 

I  see  in  midst  of  the  elemental  rage 

turning  the  small  a  in  as  into  a  capital  A,  altering 
comes  to  come  on  the  opposite  page,  and  thus  mak- 
ing the  opening 

174-1 


I  see  in  midst  of  the  elemental  rage 

As  in  contempt  of  it 

A  man  come  forth  in  safety  [  .  .  . 

Above  this  little  bit  of  work  there  are  two  portions 
of  words  cancelled :  they  look  like  Hu  and  Sta,  and 
are  followed  by  the  words  raging  elements  may 
stand,  which  I  take  to  be  a  memorandum  rather 
than  a  reading,  and  which  is  underlined  rather  than 
struck  out.  The  phrase— or  rather  line- 
But  that  the  elemental  rage 

whereof  all  but  rage  is  struck  out,  comes  next  and 
completes  the  contents  of  that  page,  which,  before 
it  was  half  dry,  our  springy-backed  Note  Book  III 
had  been  allowed  to  clap  against  page  15  r.  and 
damage  its  own  appearance  as  well  as  its  neigh- 
bour's. 

I  have  deemed  it  advisable  to  enter  with  more 
than  usual  particularity  on  the  drafting  of  this  pas- 
sage and  the  relation  of  the  final  outcome  to  the 
current  texts  because  I  consider  this  eight-line  ver- 
sion of  Cyprian's  speech,  with  its  verbal  variations 
from  the  older  versions,  as  emphatically  worthy  of 
adoption  henceforth. 

Scene  II 
[All  exclaim  (within)  ] 
We  are  all  lost 

C75J" 


[Demon  (within)]. 
Now  from  this  plank  will  I 
Pass  to  the  land  and  thus  fulfil  my  purpose 

Cyprian. 
I  see  in  midst  of  the  elemental  rage  3 

As  in  contempt  of  it 
A  man  come  forth  in  safety,  while  the  ship's 
Great  form  is,  in  a  watery  eclipse  e 

Obliterated  from  the  Ocean's  page 

And  round  its  wreck  the  huge  sea  monsters  sit 
In  horrid  conclave,  &  the  whisking  wave  9 

Is  heaped  over  its  carcase  like  a  grave. 

[The  Demon  enters,  as  escaped  from  the  sea.] 

[Demon  (aside)]. 
It  was  essential  to  my  purposes 

To  wake  this  tumult  on  the  sapphire  Ocean  12 

That  in  this  unknown  form,  I  might  at  length 
Wipe  out  the  blot  of  the  discomfiture 
Sustained  upon  the  mountain,  &  assail  15 

With  a  new  war  the  soul  of  Cyprian 
Forging  the  instruments  of  his  destruction 
Even  from  his  love  &  from  his  wisdom — 

Oh  is 

Beloved  earth,  dear  mother  in  thy  bosom 
I  seek  a  refuge  from  the  monster  which 
Precipitates  itself  upon  me. 

Cyprian. 

Friend  21 

Collect  thyself;  and  be  the  memory 

C763 


Of  thy  late  suffering,  &  thy  greatest  sorrow 

But  as  a  shadow  of  the  past— for  nothing  24 

Beneath  the  circle  of  the  moon,  but  flows 

And  changes,  &  can  never  know  repose. 

Demon. 

Who  art  [thou]  at  whose  feet  my  fortune  now  =? 

Has  prostrated  me? 

Cyprian. 

One  who  moved  with  pity 
Would  soothe  its  stings. 

Demon. 

Oh  that  can  never  be 
No  solace  can  my  lasting  sorrows  find  30 

wtu     c  Cyprian. 

Wherefore— 

Demon. 

Because  my  happiness  is  lost 
Yet  I  lament  what  has  long  ceased  to  be 
The  object  of  desire  or  memory  33 

And  my  life  is  not  life. — 

Cyprian. 

Now  since  the  fury 
Of  this  earthquaking  hurricane  is  still 
And  the  crystalline  Heaven  has  reassumed  38 

Its  windless  calm  so  quickly,  that  it  seems 
As  if  its  heavy  wrath  had  been  awakened 

1771 


Only  to  overwhelm  thy  vessel— speak — 
Who  art  thou?  &  whence  comest  thou? 

Demon. 

Far  more 

My  coming  hither  cost  than  thou  hast  witnessed 

Or  I  can  tell.  .  .among  my  misadventures 

This  shipwreck  is  the  least.    Wilt  thou  hear? — 


Cyprian. 


Demon. 


Speak. 


Since  thou  desirest  I  will  then  unviel  [sic} 

Myself  to  thee.  .  .for  in  myself  I  am 

A  world  of  happiness  &  misery 

This  I  have  lost,  &  that  I  must  lament 

Forever.    In  my  attributes  I  stood 

So  high  and  so  heroically  great 

In  lineage  so  supreme,  &  with  a  genius 

Which  penetrated  with  a  glance  the  world 

Beneath  my  feet,  that  pleased  with  his  own  [ 

A  King— whom  I  may  call  the  King  of  Kings 

Because  all  others  tremble  in  their  pride 

Before  the  terrors  of  his  countenance 

In  his  high  palace  roofed  with  priceless  gems 

Of  living  light.  .  .call  them  the  stars  of  Heaven 

Named  me  his  Counsellor, — but  the  high  praise 

Stung  me  with  pride  &  envy,  &  I  rose 

In  mighty  competition  to  ascend 

His  seat  &  place  my  foot  triumphantly 

Upon  his  subject  thrones.  .Chastised,  I  know 

The  depth  to  which  ambition  falls.  .  .too  mad 

C78] 


45 


48 


64 


Was  the  attempt,  &  yet  more  mad  were  now 
Repentance  of  the  irrevocable  deed — 
Therefore  I  chose  this  ruin  with  the  glory  ee 

Of  not  to  be  subdued,  before  the  shame 
Of  reconciling  me  with  him  who  reigns 
By  coward  cession,   .nor  was  I  alone  es 

Nor  am  I  now  nor  shall  I  be  alone 
And  there  was  hope  &  there  may  still  be  hope 
For  many  suffrages  among  his  vassals  72 

Hailed  me  their  lord,  &  king,  &  many  still 
Are  mine,  &  many  more  perchance  shall  be. — 
Thus  vanquished  though  in  part  victorious  75 

I  left  his  seat  of  empire,  from  mine  eye 
Shooting  forth  poisonous  lightning — &  my  words 
Like  inauspicious  thunderings  shook  Heaven  78 

Proclaiming  vengeance  public  as  my  wrong 
And  leaving  to  his  weak  slaves  anarchy 
Rapine  &  Death  &  outrage— thus  I  sped  si 

Over  the  mighty  frame  of  the  world 
A  pirate  ambushed  in  its  pathless  sands 
A  lynx  couched  watchfully  among  its  caverns  84 

And  craggy  shores ;  and  I  have  wandered  over 
The  expanse  of  these  wide  glassy  wildernesses 
In  this  great  Ship,  whose  bulk  is  now  dissolved  87 

In  the  light  breathings  of  the  invisible  wind 
And  which  the  sea  bas- 
in dustless  ruin;  seeking  ever  90 
A  mountain,  through  whose  caverns  &  whose  forests 
I  seek  a  man,  whom  I  must  now  compel 
To  keep  his  word  with  me ;  I  came  arrayed                   »3 
In  tempest;  &  although  my  power  could  lightly 
Bridle  the  fiercest  winds  in  their  career 

C79J" 


For  other  causes,  I  forebore  to  soothe  «e 

Their  fury  to  Favonian  gentleness 
I  could  &  would  not —  (thus  I  wake  in  him 
A  love  of  magic  art- 
let  not  this  tempest  »9 
Nor  the  succeeding  calm  excite  thy  wonder 
For  by  my  art  the  sun  would  turn  as  pale 
As  his  weak  sister  with  unwonted  fear                          102 
And  in  my  wisdom  are  the  orbs  of  Heaven 
Written  as  in  a  record;  I  have  pierced 
The  flaming  circles  of  their  [wondrous]  spheres,       105 
And  know  them  as  thou  knowest  any  corner 
Of  this  dim  spot ;  let  it  not  seem  to  thee 
That  I  boast  vainly  .  .  would  [st]  thou  that  the 

forest  108 

This  Babylon  of  crags  &  aged  trees 

L*       *****       * 

I  am  the  friendless  guest 
Of  these  wild  oaks  &  pines  &  as  from  thee  m 

I  have  received  the  hospitality 
Of  this  rude  place ;  I  offer  thee  the  fruit 
Of  years  of  toil  in  recompense ;  whatever  114 

Thy  wildest  dream  presented  to  thy  thought 
The  object  of  desire— that  shall  be  thine 
And  thenceforth  shall  so  firm  an  amity  117 

Twixt  thee  &  me  be,  that  neither  Fortune — 
The  monstrous  phantom  which  pursues  success 
That  careful  miser  that  free  prodigal  120 

Who  ever  alternates  with  unshaken  hand 
Evil  &  good,  reproach  &  fame ;  nor  Time 
That  load  star  of  the  ages,  to  whose  beam  123 


The  winged  years  speed  oer  the  interval 

Of  their  unequal  revolutions,  nor 

Heaven  itself  whose  beautiful  bright  stars  iae 

Rule  &  adorn  the  world,  can  ever  make 

The  least  division  between  thee  &  me, 

Since  now  I  find  a  refuge  in  thy  favour.  129 

And  this  is  with  [  .  .  . 

Here,  with  almost  unmannerly  abruptness,  ends 
our  courtly  Spanish  Demon  masking  in  his  Eng- 
lish dress,  that  glorious  compound  of  Miltonic 
dignity  and  Calderonic  ease,  which  Shelley  had 
achieved  with  what  to  him  appeared  but  moderate 
pains;  for  he  wrote  to  John  Gisborne  on  the  10th 
of  April  1822  of  his  Scenes  from  Calderon  and 
Goethe— "I  am  well  content  with  those  from  Cal- 
deron, which  in  fact  gave  me  very  little  trouble" 
—a  passage  affording  us  grounds  to  hope  for 
undiscovered  sources  of  further  improvement  to 
the  text.  At  present  we  have  but  to  end  our  exam- 
ination of  the  "very  little  trouble"  so  far  as  it  stands 
on  record  in  the  forty-one  pages  devoted  to  Cyprian 
in  Note  Book  III.  Returning  to  the  opening  of 
Scene  II,  we  see  that  the  aside  of  the  Prodigious 
Magician  Satan  claiming  the  authorship  of  the 
storm  and  shipwreck,  and  also  avowing  his  object 
therein,  shows  several  readings  and  revisions,  but 
comes  out  at  last  almost  identically  as  in  the  estab- 
lished text.  The  first  drafting  of  lines  n  to  14 
appears  to  have  been  as  follows:— 

C8O 


It  was  essential  to  my  purposes 
To  strew  this  tempest  oer  the  sapphire  fields 
Of  Ocean ;  and  thus  in  unaccustomed  form 
Wipe  out  the  blot  of  the  discomfiture  &c. 

In  the  second  of  these  four  lines  what  looks  like 
move  was  substituted  for  strew  and  then  wake  was 
written  above  the  line :  tempest  was  afterwards  can- 
celled with  a  pencil  in  favour  of  tumult,  oer  was 
altered  in  ink  to  on,  and  fields  to  waters;  and  after- 
wards, when  the  third  line  was  rejected,  the  word 
Ocean  was  transferred  to  the  second  line  and  a 
new  third  written— 

And  in  this  unknown  form  I  might  now 

which  was  reduced  to  order  by  cancelling  And  for 
That  and  now  for  at  length.  Line  16  was  written 
with  a  blank  space,  thus— 

With  a  new  war  the  one  Cyprian  [ ; 

and  then  one  was  struck  out  and  soul  of  written 
above  the  line.  The  next  line  was  originally  to 
have  begun  with  Availing  myself  of ;  but  he  struck 
that  opening  out  and  began  again  with  Steal.  This, 
of  course,  indicates  Stealing;  but  that  was  aban- 
doned for  the  Forging  of  the  text.    In  line  13 

Even  from  his  love  &  from  his  wisdom 

is  written  plainly  all  except  the  word  love,  which 
is  far  more  like  lore  than  love  and  may  some  day 

on 


tempt  some  adventurous  young  editor  desirous  of 
discrediting  the  work  of  his  elders  to  substitute  lore 
for  love  in  the  text  and  defend  it  on  the  ground  of 
Tennyson's  fine  distinction  between  knowledge  and 
wisdom,  the  one  "earthly  of  the  mind,"  the  other 
"heavenly  of  the  soul."  It  is  useless  to  shut  the 
stable-door  after  the  horse  is  stolen ;  so  let  us  at  once 
take  Calderon  to  witness  that  Shelley  could  not 
have  so  misunderstood  him  as  to  put  lore  in  this 
place  and  anticipate  Tennyson,  inasmuch  as  the 
Spanish  reads 

Valiendome  assi  mejor 

de  su  ingenio,  y  de  su  amor. 

Crede  experto!  I  was  that  young  adventurous 
editor  myself  some  thirty-five  years  ago;  and  with 
an  obstinate  enthusiasm  of  text-protection  attacked 
my  seniors  and  betters  right  and  left  if  they  wanted 
to  alter  Shelley  for  the  sake  of  grammar  or  con- 
sistency. Chickens  of  this  sort  come  home  to  roost 
sooner  or  later;  and  here  in  the  next  line  but  one  is 
one  of  mine.  After  cancelling  Dear  mother  as  a 
commencement  of  line  19  Shelley  wrote,  as  we 
have  seen, 

Beloved  earth,  dear  mother  in  thy  bosom 
I  seek  a  refuge  from  the  monster  which 
Precipitates  itself  upon  me. 

The  word  which  is  as  bad  a  piece  of  pencraft  as 
you  would  meet  in  a  day's  march ;  but  it  is  beyond 

C833 


all  question  which  and  not  who.  The  established 
text  here  is  horrid — 

I  seek  a  refuge  from  the  monster  who 
Precipitates  itself  upon  me. 

Rossetti  had  the  courage  in  1870  to  substitute  him- 
self for  itself]  and  in  1877  I  had  the  assurance  to 
reject  the  emendation  with  the  pert  remark  that  if 
change  were  admissible,  I  should  think  it  safer  to 
substitute  which  for  who.  Apart  from  the  princi- 
ple I  was  advocating,  that  such  changes  should  not 
be  made  con jectu rally,  I  do  not  see  that  there  is 
much  to  choose  between  the  Rossetti  text  and  the 
Cyprian  text;  and  I  certainly  claim  no  weird  fore- 
sight as  to  what  the  poet  himself  would  say  in  the 
fulness  of  time.  However,  he  has  spoken  now;  and 
I  am  quite  certain  that  Rossetti  will  be  as  glad  as 
the  rest  of  us  to  have  the  text  grammatical  with  the 
poet's  sanction. 

In  line  22  there  is  a  rejected  reading,  thy  before 
an  unfinished  and  illegible  word;  and  for  the 
penultimate  of  line  26  find  is  cancelled  in  favour 
of  know.    Line  27  was  first  written  thus— 

And  who  art  at  whose  feet  my  fortune  now  [ ; 

but  And  is  struck  out:  Shelley,  however,  forgot  to 
supply  the  thou  of  the  established  text,  which  reads 

And  who  art  thou,  before  whose  feet  my  fate 
Has  prostrated  me? 

XM 


In  line  29  Yet  stands  cancelled  for  Oh,  and  in  line 
31  all  for  my,  while  the  next  line  shows  the  re- 
jected reading  that  which  I  do  not  know  for  what 
has  long  ceased  to  be.  At  the  end  of  line  35  the  last 
word,  still,  supersedes  calmed;  and  in  the  next  line 
but  one  quiet  gives  place  to  calm.  Lines  37  to  39, 
indeed,  are  much  revised.  They  were  originally 
written 

Its  windless  quiet  so  soon  that  it  seems 
Its  heavy  anger  was  awakened  only 
To  overwhelm  thy  vessel — speak — 

but  as  finally  left  they  correspond  with  the  estab- 
lished text  save  that  the  word  thy  before  vessel  gave 
place  to  that,  which  is  perhaps  a  better  reading  than 
the  Cyprian  reading,  though  not  so  faithful  to  the 
Spanish,  tu  nave.  Line  41  was  originally  identical 
with  the  line  of  the  established  text,  ending  with 
seen',  but  Shelley  deliberately  struck  seen  out  in 
Cyprian  and  substituted  witnessed.  In  line  42  he 
originally  wrote 

Or  I  can  tell  .  .  .  and  if  my 

substituting  among  my  misadventures  after  the 
"one-em  leader."  Then  he  showed  a  little  fastid- 
iousness as  to  the  division  of  speeches,  writing  first 

This  shipwreck  is  the  least  .  .  .  but  wilt  thou  hear?— 

Cyp. 
Speak— 

[85J- 


D 

Since  thou  desirest  I  will  then  unviel 

and  so  on,  but  striking  out  the  one-em  leader  (...) 
and  but  and  transferring  Speak  to  the  other  side  of 
the  page  so  as  to  make  it  the  complement  of  line  43 
instead  of  the  opening  of  line  44.  This  Speak  rep- 
resents merely  Si  in  the  Spanish  and,  though  more 
suitable  in  itself  than  Yes,  Shelley  would  probably, 
with  more  life  at  his  disposal,  have  noticed  the  de- 
sirableness of  getting  rid  either  of  Speak  here,  or 
the  speak  at  the  end  of  line  39.  But  "the  moving 
finger  writes,"  sometimes  more  swiftly  than  the 
divine  poet.  Nothing  could  exceed  the  magnifi- 
cence of  the  language  in  which  he  has  rendered 
this  astonishing  "unveiling"  speech  of  Satan's;  and 
every  one  of  his  numerous  cancellings  from  this 
point  onward  has  its  distinct  weight.  Take  the 
lines 

This  I  have  lost,  &  that  I  must  lament 

Forever;  in  all  attributes  I  stood 

So  famous,  so  heroically  great 

In  rank  [  .  .  . 

here  every  change— look  back  to  the  text  and  note 
carefully— down  to  the  full-stop  at  Forever  and 
the  capital  /  given  to  in,  contributes  to  the  potency 
of  the  Prodigious  Magician's  magic  of  utterance. 
Again,  after  line  55, 

Before  the  terrors  of  his  countenance 


Cyprian  shows  the  cancelled  reading 

Who  in  his  palace  roofed  with  diamonds 

And  carbuncles.  .  .call  them  the  stars  of  Heaven 

and  then 

(  high 
In  his  I  bright  \  palace  roofed  with  priceless  gems 

/great 
Of  living  light 

but  nowhere  here  appears  the  reading  of  the  estab- 
lished text,  brightest  gems.  The  generalization  of 
Calderon's  diamonds  and  carbuncles  (diamantes,  y 
pyropos)  into  gems  of  living  light  adds  dignity  to 
the  passage.    Line  60  was  first  written  thus— 

In  competition  of  the  throne  to  ascend 

and  the  was  altered  to  his  before  the  reading  of  the 
Cyprian  text,  identical  here  with  the  published 
text,  was  adopted.  In  line  62  he  seems  to  have  in- 
tended to  write— 

Upon  his  subject  thrones,   .too  late  I  know 

but  he  got  no  further  than  too  before  he  abandoned 
that  form  for  the  much  finer  reading  Chastised,  I 
know,  which  is  obviously  more  faithful  to  the  orig- 
inal, castigado  lo  conozco.  The  drafting  pro- 
ceeded thus 


Chastised,  I  know 
The  madness  thought 
The  horror  of  the 

depth  to  which  ambition  |    ,  ..      i.  .  .  For  others 

too  mad 

w 

Was  the  attempt,  [  .  .  . 

Shelley  did  not  here,  more  than  elsewhere,  attain 
to  exactness  in  striking  out  precisely  what  he  re- 
jected; but  no  other  text  is  deducible  than  that 
given  as  lines  62-4  (which  is  the  established  text) . 
Once  more,  in  dealing  with  Calderon's 

mas  quiero  en  mi  obstinacion, 
con  mis  alientos  briosos, 
despenarme  de  bizarro, 
que  rendirme  de  medroso : 

Shelley  did  not  reach  at  one  bound  his  almost  sub- 
Therefore  I  chose  this  ruin  with  the  glory 
Of  not  to  be  subdued,  before  the  shame 
Of  reconciling  me  with  him  who  reigns 
By  coward  cession  .  . 

Cyprian  reads  successively 

And  I  have  chosen  to  despair 
And  I  choose  rather  to  per[sist?] 
I  choose  ruin  despair  &  ruin 

and  then,  the  first  two  lines  being  cancelled,  but  not 
the  third,  curiously  enough,  comes 


Therefore  I  chose  this  ruin  with  the  glory 
Of  not  to  be  subdued  before  the  shame 
Of  purchasing  [  .  .  . 

Here  he  halted  again,  struck  out  purchasing,  and 
wrote 

reconciling  me  with  him  who  reigns 
By  shameful  cession  .  . 

Then,  shameful  having  given  place  to  coward,  that 
piece  of  drafting  was  done. 

In  line  70  he  began  with  Nor  am  I  now  alone  but 
struck  out  alone  to  make  the  reading  of  our  text; 
and  in  line  72  vassals,  names,  votes,  and  were  had 
been  cancelled  before  the  line  became  what  it  is 
both  in  Cyprian  and  the  published  text.  Line  73 
was  at  first  a  foot  short- 
Hailed  me  their  lord,  &  many  still 
and  the  noble  line  (75) 

Thus  vanquished  though  in  part  victorious 

which  has  never  yet  been  correctly  printed,  but 
stands  to  this  day  disfigured  by  a  misreading  of  part 
for  fact,  has  three  forms  here,  though  not  written 
completely  three  times- 
Vanquished  although  in  part  victorious 
Vanquished  though  thus  in  part  victorious 
Thus  vanquished  though  in  part  victorious  [. 

C893 


The  word  part  is  only  written  once  and  is  in  Shel- 
ley's boldest  and  plainest  manner.  As  to  fact,  I 
know  of  no  defence  for  it  save  usage:  certainly 
Calderon  gives  it  no  support — 

vencido, 
aunque  in  parte  victorioso, 

and  on  the  whole  the  emendation  afforded  by 
Cyprian  is  a  distinctly  important  one. 

In  line  JJ  it  is  probable  that  Shelley  meant  to 
supersede  while  my  words  by  &  my  words',  but  this 
is  not  certain  as  both  the  word  while  and  the 
ampersand  are  uncancelled.  I  think  while  was 
written  first,  from  its  position.  There  is  no  doubt 
about  Like  being  the  first  word  of  line  78,  not  With 
as  in  the  established  text.  I  mistrust  With.  The 
reading  of  line  80  is  not  quite  secure,  for  the  word 
which  I  take  to  be  anarchy  has  some  "blind" 
strokes  in  the  middle:  an  and  chy  look  plain 
enough.  It  is  not  absolutely  clear  in  what  order 
he  wrote  the  alternative  words  here;  but  I  think 
they  came  thus — And  on  his  leaving  an ;  then  weak- 
lings inserted  over  his  leaving,  as  a  word  left  out  by 
accident;  and  anarchy,  which  should  have  been 
written  there,  stopped  in  mid  career  on  account  of 
the  omission  of  weaklings',  then  he  seems  to  have 
misliked  weaklings,  struck  out  on  his  leaving  and 
tried  to  strike  out  weaklings ;  next,  below  this,  came 
leaving  to  his  slaves  great;  and  finally,  omitting  to 
strike  out  the  an  which  I  take  for  the  beginning  of 

C9o3 


anarchy  in  the  middle  of  the  line,  he  crossed 
through  great  which  was  probably  meant  to  have 
some  trisyllable  other  than  anarchy  after  it,  and, 
writing  iveak  slaves  above  the  line,  he  made  the 
unsuccessful  attempt  already  described  to  write 
anarchy  at  the  end  of  the  line.  I  do  not  doubt  that 
the  passage  he  meant  to  leave  was  this — 

And  leaving  to  his  weak  slaves  anarchy 

Rapine  &  death  &  outrage- 
but  even  before  he  wrote  Rapine  &  death  &  out- 
rage, he  had  tried  and  abandoned  Death  outrage  cC\ 

Line  81  ends  with  thus  I    <  *\      >,  neither  final 

(  ruled ) 

word  being  decidedly  cancelled,  though  I  think  a 
line  separating  them  was  meant  to  go  through 
ruled.  Line  82  gives  no  trace  of  fabric  (the  ortho- 
dox reading)  ;  but  frame,  though  plain  enough,  is 
not  very  nicely  written,  and  does  not  suit  the  metre. 
What  particular  beast  of  prey  Shelley  meant  at  first 
to  place  at  the  Demon's  disposal  for  his  abundant 
imagery,  we  may  never  know— it  may  have  been  an 
ounce— at  all  events  he  began  line  83  with  An,  then 
struck  out  the  n  and  wrote  lynx,  and  next,  cancel- 
ling lynx,  he  wrote  hellish  lynx  couched  in  the 
caverns',  then,  as  the  metre  was  short,  he  substi- 
tuted hollow  shores  for  caverns  and  read  flowingly 
enough 

A  hellish  lynx  couched  in  the  hollow  shores  [  ; 

C9O 


but  hellish  seems  to  have  struck  him  as  a  poor  ad- 
jective for  the  Devil  to  employ  in  regard  to  a  lynx; 
so  he  struck  it  out  and  made  of  his  lynx  a  plain 
lynx— 

A  lynx  couched  watchfully  among  the  caverns 

And  craggy  shores 

finally  altering  the  caverns  to  its  caverns,  and  there 
an  end  of  it, — for  although  caverns  was  written  no 
fewer  than  three  times,  there  was  no  trace  of  the 
caves  of  the  orthodox  text.  Line  86  has  a  false 
start,  Every,  struck  out,  and  after  that  was  first 
written  thus — 

The  expanse  of  these  glassy  wildernesses 

as  if  the  second  word  were  to  be  accented  on  the 
first  syllable ;  but  that  no  such  intention  was  delib- 
erately formed  is  evident  from  the  fact  that  the  poet 
did  not  leave  the  line  thus :  having  adopted  the  un- 
usual course  of  putting  an  accent  with  his  pen  on 
the  second  syllable  and  thus  made  it  clear  that  The 
expanse  was  to  count  for  two  syllables  only,  as  if 
written  Th'expanse,  he  wrote  the  extra  adjective 
vast  over  the  line,  cancelled  it  in  favour  of  wide, 
and  left  us  a  line  which  will  establish  a  "record"  of 
luminous  conjectural  criticism  for  Rossetti, 

The  expanse  of  these  wide  glassy  wildernesses. 

Up  till  1870  the  line  was  printed  as 

The  expanse  of  these  wide  wildernesses  [ ; 

1*1 


but  Rossetti,  seeing  that  Calderon's  line 
essas  campanas  de  vidrio 

was  not  fully  rendered  and  that  some  such  word  as 
glassy  was  wanted  in  the  combined  interests  of  sense 
and  metre,  inserted  glassy.  In  1877  I  had  not  the 
hardihood  or  perspicacity,  say  which  you  will,  to 
follow  him,  but  merely  recorded  the  bold  emenda- 
tion—this time  not  pertly— and  as  far  as  I  know 
Rossetti's  editions  still  enjoy  the  monopoly  of  what 
turns  out  to  be  the  correct  reading.  If  ever  any 
editorial  change  in  a  modern  poet's  text  deserved 
to  be  recorded  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biog- 
raphy on  a  footing  of  equality  with  John  Coning- 
ton's  "splendid  emendation"  in  the  Agamemnon 
(717),  Xebj/Tos  hup  for  \eovra  <tiviv}  assuredly  that 
meed  of  honour  is  due  to  Rossetti  for  his  forty 
years'  maintenance  of  the  characteristic  and  beau- 
tiful line  which  we  others  have  even  failed  in  our 
rigorous  conservatism  to  adopt. 

In  line  88  there  is  a  cancelled  opening,  which,  if 
retained,  would  have  made  the  line 

Into  the  idle  &  invisible  wind  [ ; 

and  the  next  two  lines  are  left  imperfect.  I  am  not 
sure  that  the  established  text  is  above  suspicion:  it 
reads  thus — 

And  which  the  sea  has  made  a  dustless  ruin 
Seeking  ever  a  mountain  through  whose  forests 
I  seek  a  man  whom  I  must  now  compel  &c. 

C93] 


It  is  fair  to  conjecture  that  it  was  just  this  jingle  of 
Seeking  and  I  seek  which  pulled  Shelley  up  short 
in  Cyprian,  and  that,  on  returning  to  the  passage, 
he  would  have  produced  something  better  than  the 
established  text  to  render  Calderon's 

oy  corria  codicioso, 

hasta  examinar  un  monte, 

piedra  a  piedra,  y  tronco  a  tronco; 

porque  en  el  un  hombre  vive, 

y  a  buscarle  me  dispongo, 

a  que  cumpla  una  palabra, 

que  el  me  ha  dado,  y  yo  le  otorgo. 

After  A  mountain,  in  line  91,  the  words  which  I 
must  as  were  written  and  struck  out.  In  the  next 
passage,  where  the  style  is  at  its  finest,  there  are 
some  notable  variations :  in  line  94  he  wrote  &  al- 
though my  wisdom,  struck  out  wisdom  and  wrote 
power  could  well,  and  then,  striking  out  well  in 
turn,  wrote  what  looks  like  lightning  but  might  be 
meant  for  lightly,  which  I  have  adopted  with  trepi- 
dation as  the  text  of  our  draft.  For  the  first  word 
of  line  95  he  wrote  Restrain,  and  before  he  went 
further  eclipsed  it  almost  totally  by  writing  Bridle 
over  it — Bridle  the  fiercest  winds.  This  reading 
he  struck  out,  substituting  Could  seize  the  headlong 
winds,  but  rejected  that  in  turn  and  wrote  the  line 
fully  with  his  second  reading— thus— 

Bridle  the  fiercest  winds  in  their  career  [ — 


for  of  the  nonsensical  forest  winds  with  which  we 
have  had  to  put  up  in  the  established  text  there  is 
no  trace  in  Cyprian.  Between  lines  97  and  98  he 
cancelled  the  abortive  line 

And  harmony 

and  as  the  close  of  line  99  he  wrote  and  rejected 
Wonder  not  therefore.  In  line  100  the  words  used 
are,  I  think,  as  in  the  established  text,  excite  thy 
wonder ;  but  they  might  be  meant  for  evoke  thy 
wonder.  For  line  101  there  is  the  rejected  opening 
My  wisdom  could.  It  is  unfortunate  that  the  line 
( 105)  which  promised  to  render  so  finely 

linea  a  linea 
los  he  discurrido  todos; 

remains  imperfect  in  Cyprian ;  for  Shelley  might 
have  chanced  on  a  better  word  than  the  wondrous 
which  I  have  inserted  between  hooks  from  the 
established  text.  For  line  108  the  opening  words 
That  I  boast  were  struck  out  and  a  fresh  start  was 
made  with 

That  I  am  strong  only  [  .   .   . 

to  which  he  probably  meant  to  add  in  words,  but 
thought  better  of  it  and  reverted  to  That  I  boast — 

That  I  boast  vainly  .   .  would  thou  that  the  forest 
This  Babylon  of  crags  &  aged  trees — 

and  then,  for  the  time  being,  he  dropped  the  thread 
of  his  thought,  Calderon's  thought,  and  left  the  gap 

C953 


shown  by  the  Cyprian  text  as  already  set  out.  That 
he  returned  to  the  attack  is  clear  from  the  corre- 
sponding passage  in  the  established  text.  Calderon 
says— and  the  passage  is  not  as  easy  as  usual — 

y  porque  no  te  parezca, 
que  sin  ocasion  blasono, 
mira  si  a  este  mismo  instante 
quieres  que  lo  inculto,  y  tosco 
deste  Nembrot  de  penascos, 
mas  bruto  que  el  Babylonio, 
te  facilite  lo  horrible, 
sin  que  pierda  lo  frondoso. 

Shelley,  according  to  the  established  edition,  made 

this — 

Let  it  not  seem  to  thee 

That  I  boast  vainly ;  wouldst  thou  that  I  work 
A  charm  over  this  waste  and  savage  wood, 
This  Babylon  of  crags  and  aged  trees, 
Filling  its  leafy  coverts  with  a  horror 
Thrilling  and  strange  ? 

For  this  rendering  Mary  must  have  had  some 
manuscript  authority  other  than  Cyprian ;  for  none 
but  Shelley  was  capable  of  that  piece  of  transfu- 
sion. The  style  is  at  his  richest,  freest,  and  best; 
and,  taken  with  the  fact  that  the  opening  sixty-one 
lines  of  his  Scene  II  as  published  by  Mary  do  not 
occur  at  all  in  Cyprian  and  are  in  a  more  forward 
state  than  much  of  the  work  as  represented  in 
Cyprian,  I  hardly  doubt  that  many  pages  of  the 


manuscript  are  yet  to  be  found,  either  separately 
or  in  another  Note  Book. 

The  half-line  numbered  no  follows  in  Cyprian 
a  note  of  interrogation  inserted  in  the  blank  space 
where  the  translation  is  left  incomplete;  and  the 
jottings  for  the  passage  then  commenced  stand 
thus:— 

I  am  the  guest,  the  outcast 
Of  this  intangled  wilderness,  I  ask 
Its  hospitality  from  thee  &  as  from  thee 

Of  these  wild  oaks  &  pines— I  have  f  ,  ,    ,> 

r  (demanded) 

Their  hospitality  from  thee,  and  I 

In  compensation 

Offer,  as  I  recompense  the  [  .  .  . 

In  this  group  of  lines  and  phrases  the  word  outcast, 
the  first  complete  line,  and  the  words  Its  hospitality 
from  thee  are  crossed  through  with  decision;  so 
are  both  the  word  received  and  the  word  demanded 
substituted  below  it;  and  all  the  rest,  though  with  a 
certain  ineffectual  impetuosity,  was  certainly  re- 
jected; but  when  the  poet  struck  out  outcast  he 
wrote  the  word  friendless  above  the  line;  and  I 
suspect  that,  at  that  particular  bout  of  drafting,  not 
knowing  exactly  how  he  was  going  to  deal  with 
what  he  had  left  unrendered,  he  meant  to  leave  two 
complete  lines — thus: — 

I  am  the  friendless  guest,  &  as  from  thee 
I  have  received  the  hospitality  [— 

t97l 


not  observing  either  then  or  afterwards  amid  his 
blank  verse  the  accidental  weak  rhyme  of  thee  and 
hospitality.  In  this  Cyprian  draft  he  wrote  two 
(for  Shelley)  almost  inconceivably  weak  and  prosy 
lines  after  I  offer  thee  the  fruit  (line  113)  — 

Of  years  of  toil  in  testimony  of 

My  sense  of  jl  frank  courtesy;  whatever  [ ; 

but  happily  he  substituted  recompense  thereof  for 
testimony  of,  and  still  more  happily  he  struck  out 
my  sense  of  yt  frank  courtesy  and  left  us  in  posses- 
sion of  the  lines 

Of  years  of  toil  in  recompense ;  whatever 
Thy  wildest  dream  presented  to  thy  thought 
The  object  of  desire — that  shall  be  thine  [ — 

and  here  once  more  is  the  need  for  a  "strictly 
speaking,"  on  two  grounds;  for  in  the  first  place 
he  had  reached  the  right-hand  bottom  corner  of 
page  III  20  r.  when  he  recorded  the  decision  to  end 
with  thought,  and  the  intractable  little  book  only 
permitted  him  to  write  though ;  and  in  the  second 
place  I  am  not  absolutely  convinced  that  he  meant 
to  leave  us  in  possession  of 

Thy  wildest  dream  presented  to  thy  thought 
The  object  of  desire— 

for  under  those  four  words  is  a  straight  line  which 
has  a  kind  of  censorious  expression  about  it;  and 
beneath  this  reading  he  wrote  another— 


Whatever  thy  wildest  dreams  have  made  to  thee 
The  object  of  desire  that  shall  be  thine — 

wherein  his  dealings  with  the  word  Whatever  do 
not  lend  any  support  to  the  whate'er  of  the  estab- 
lished text,  and  wherein  the  phrase  As  object  of 
desire  gets  naught  but  negative  support.  However, 
I  keep  an  open  mind  on  the  question  whether  it  is 
to  Shelley  or  to  Mary  that  we  owe  the  orthodox 
close  of  this  passage— 

whate'er 
Thy  wildest  dream  presented  to  thy  thought 
As  object  of  desire,  that  shall  be  thine. 

It  is  certainly  to  Shelley  that  we  owe  the  halting 
line  1 1 8, 

Twixt  thee  &  me  be,  that  neither  Fortune ; 

and  I  can  but  hope  that,  when  those  other  manu- 
script pages  are  picked  out  of  the  wallet  at  Time's 
back  in  which  he  keeps  his  "alms  for  oblivion," 
they  may  authorize  the  reading  which  I  suggested 
in  1877  and  still  believe  in  as  of  the  highest  proba- 
bility- 
Be  betwixt  thee  and  me,  that  neither  Fortune.  .  . 

In  line  120  of  the  Cyprian  Scene  II,  Success  was  at 
first  described  as  That  wrinkled  miser;  butwrinkled 
was  rejected  in  favour  of  careful;  and  the  next  two 
lines  were  a  retrenchment  of  two  and  a  half — 

C99H 


Who  ever  alternates  with  unshaken  hand 
Evil  &  good,  reproach  &  glory,  wealth 
And  want,  nor  Time  [ — 

wherein  unshaken  is  absolutely  clear  and  not  mis- 
takable  for  the  changeful  of  the  orthodox  text,  and 
the  second  line  becomes 

Evil  &  good,  reproach  &  fame ;  nor  Time  [. 

Line  123  shows  the  cancelled  variant  which  at- 
tracts for  to  whose  beams;  line  124  was  an  Alex- 
andrine, 

The  winged  months  &  years  speed  oer  the  interval  [ ; 

but  Shelley  struck  out  months  &\  and  in  line  125 
swift  revolutions  (also  on  metrical  grounds)  gives 
place  to  unequal  revolutions',  line  128  originally 
figured  as 

Division  between  thee  &  me,  since  thou  [ — 

and  line  129  as 

Since  thus  thou  grantest  me  thy  aid  [ ; 

but  128  was  obviously  altered  to  the  reading  of  the 
text  before  129  was  written.  Then,  having  written 
Since  thus,  Shelley  altered  thus  to  now ;  and  finally 
he  struck  out  thou  grantest  me  thy  aid  and  inserted 
/  find  a  refuge  in  thy  favour. 

It  is  on  page  III  34  v.  that  the  unfinished  draft 
of  the  Floro  and  Lelio  scene  ends ;  and  on  the  oppo- 
site page,  III  35  r.,  is  a  slight  pen  and  ink  sketch 


of  a  yawl  with  a  gaff  topsail,  very  inexactly  drawn, 
but  I  should  think  meant  to  represent  the  "Don 
Juan."     The  verso  of  the  leaf  bearing  this  me- 


morial of  the  poet's  approaching  end  is  blank,  as 
are  the  next  four  leaves,  pages  III  36  r.  to  39  v. 

Of  leaf  40  also  the  recto  is  blank;  but  on  the 
verso  is  a  neat  little  pen  and  ink  outline  sketch  of  a 
fountain  with  a  war-horse  from  which  a  warrior 
(say  a  crusader)  has  dismounted  and  is  kneeling  to 
drink:  the  drawing  is  spoilt  by  a  child's  scribble 
partly  over  its  details.  From  page  41  to  page  78 
there  is  nothing  of  the  slightest  interest.     Every 


page  of  the  whole  thirty-eight  leaves  is  either  left 
blank  or  occupied  by  infantile  scribblings.  The 
artist  of  these  pages  has  not  betrayed  to  which  sex 
we  are  indebted  for  the  contribution.  There  is  a 
choice  between  little  Allegra,  the  daughter  of 
Byron  and  Claire  Clairmont,  on  the  one  hand,  and 
the  child  Percy  Florence,  afterwards  Sir  Percy 
Shelley,  the  third  Baronet,  on  the  other.  I  think 
Rossetti  leans  to  the  little  boy;  and  he  is  certainly  a 
better  authority  on  art  than  I  am. 


C 102;] 


CHARLES  THE  FIRST 

At  the  other  end  of  Note  Book  III,  the  second 
or  starred  pagination,  the  first  few  pages  are  con- 
nected with  the  unfinished  drama  Charles  the  First. 
These  form  the  fourth  item  set  down  in  the  Auc- 
tioneer's Catalogue  under  the  head  of  Unpublished 
Matter,  thus:— 

"Abstract  of  Drama,  'Charles  I'— Begins  with  the 
words  Act  I,  scene  I.  The  Masque— Bastwick  and 
Citizens,'  etc.  Scenes  set  forth  for  Acts  I  and  II,  clos- 
ing with  the  words :  'The  End,  Strafford's  Death,'  but 
this  probably  only  indicates  end  of  Act.  II." 

Abstract  or  Program  of  Acts  I  and  II  of 
Charles  the  First. 

Acti.8'   The  Mask 

Scene,   i.     St  Bastwick  &  citizens— to  him 

enter  Leighton :  &  afterwards  An  old  man  &  a  Law 
Student. 

Scene  2.  The  interior  of  Whitehall— The  King 
Wentworth,  Laud,  Ld  Keeper  Coventry  Lord  Es- 
sex Archy  to  them  enter  Dr.  John,  Noy,  &  the  law- 
yers—circumstances indicative  first  of  the  state  of 


the  country  &  Government,  &  the  demands  of  the 
King  &  Queen,  Laud  &C.1  secondly  of  the  methods 
for  securing  money  &  power. 

Scene  3^  Pym  Hazlerig  Cromwell,  young  Sir 
H.  Vane,  Hampden  &=— their  character  &  inten- 
tions—a pursuivant  comes  with  an  order  of  council 
to  prevent  their  embarkation— Cromwells  speech 
on  that  occasion— high  commission  pursuivants 

Messengers  of  council 
The   imprisonment   of   members   of    Parliament 
Lauds  excessive  thirst  for  gold  &  blood2   Williams 
committed  to  the  Tower  to  whom3  Laud  owed  his 
first  promotion 

Act  2"?    Scene  1 

Chiefs  of  the  Popular  Party,  Hampden's  trial  &  its 
effects— Reasons  of  Hampden  &  his  colleag[u]es 
for  resistance— young  Sir  H.  Vane's  reasons:  The 
first  rational  &  logical,  the  Second  impetuous  & 
enthusiastic 

Reasonings  on  Hampden's  trial  p.  222 
The  King  zealous  for  the  Church  inheriting  this 
disposition  from  his  father 
This  act  to  open4  between  the  two  Scotch  Wars 

Easter  day  1635 

The  reading  of  the  liturgy 
Lord  Traquai 

1  Cancelled  reading  Laud  &  Wentw. 

2  Here  Shelley  has  cancelled  the  words  release  refused  to  Jen- 
nings &  bail  refused. 

3  Cancelled  reading  from  wh\om\.    The  next  page  bears  only 
the  word  Sadeler  uncancelled  and  Reasonings  on  Ham  cancelled. 

4  Before  the  word  between  Shelley  cancelled  after. 

C 104.;] 


The  Covenant 

The  determined  resistance  against  Charles  & 
the  liturgy- 
Worse  than  the  worst  is  indecision 
Mary  di  Medici  the  Queen  came  to  England  in 
1638.    it  was  observed  that  the  sword  &  pestilence 
followed  her  wherever  she  went  &  that  her  restless 
spirit  embroiled  every  thing  she  approached. 


The  King  annulled  at  York 

Many  unlawful  grants  &?  in  wh  [  .  .  . 

The  pages  from  which  this  Abstract  is  tran- 
scribed are  eight  in  number.  The  order  in  which 
those  eight  pages  have  to  be  read  is  as  follows: 
III  *  1  r.  and  v.,  2  r.  and  v.,  3  r.,  4  r.,  3  v.,  5  r. 
Of  4  and  5  the  versos  are  blank.  On  III  *  4  r., 
which  is  a  particularly  interesting  page,  only  one 
word,  Wars,  completing  the  phrase  between  the 
two  Scotch  Wars,  comes  into  the  abstract  or  pro- 
gram proper;  but  in  the  upper  half  of  the  page 
there  is  a  boldly  pencilled  heading  repeating  in 
different  words  the  statement  that  the  act  takes 
place  between  the  two  Scotch  Wars — 

Act  2 
After  the  i?1  Scottish  War  [— 

and  at  the  bottom  of  the  page  are  the  important 
words  quoted  in  the  Auction  Catalogue,  again 
boldly  pencilled, 

The  End— Straffords  death 

D05] 


In  the  centre  of  the  page  is  a  prettily  sketched  little 
tree-piece,  very  English-looking,  so  English-look- 
ing that  the  mind  involuntarily  passes  from  Charles 
to  his  fugitive  son,  and  one  imagines,  perhaps  a 
trifle  fantastically,  that  this  umbrageous  tree  might 
even  be  the  oak  which  is  the  hero  of  the  29th  of 
May— a  day  which  when  I  was  a  good  little  boy  at 
school  was  known  as  Royal  Oak  Day,  or,  in  Devon, 
Oak- Apple  Day,— the  tree 

Wherein  the  younger  Charles  abode 

Till  all  the  paths  were  dim, 
While  far  below  the  Roundhead  rode 

And  humm'd  a  surly  hymn. 

It  is  not  that  suggestion  of  Tennyson's  charming 
fantasy  The  Talking  Oak  that  gives  this  page  its 
interest.  It  is  not  a  light  fantastic  interest  at  all, 
but  a  profoundly  tragic  interest.  For  on  this  page 
foreshadowing  the  death  of  Strafford  as  to  be 
figured  by  Shelley  at  the  close  of  the  Second  Act 
of  his  ill-starred  historic  tragedy,  we  see  adum- 
brated also  the  death  of  Shelley  himself.  Over  the 
pencillings  on  the  page  he  has  drawn  very  boldly 
and  graphically  in  ink  a  yawl  spanking  through 
the  water;  and  if  her  mainsail  does  not  bear  any 
distinguishing  mark,  and  if  he  has  not  inscribed  his 
sketch  with  either  of  the  names  whereby  we  know 
his  fatal  pleasure-boat— whether  "Ariel"  or  "Don 


J 


Juan"— we  shall  probably  never  see  a  better  em- 
bodiment of  the  soul  of  that  little  craft, 

"Built  in  th'  eclipse  and  rigg'd  with  curses  dark," 

than  that  which  he  has  himself  left  among  the 
leaves  of  his  program  for  the  conduct  of  Charles 
the  First. 


t™7l 


HERNE'S  FEAST:  A  FRAGMENT 

The  Abstract  or  Program  of  Acts  I  and  II  of 
Charles  the  First  is  followed  by  a  very  curious 
composition  which,  at  first  sight,  strikes  us  as  one 
of  Shelley's  few  attempts  at  fooling  with  the  sacred 
art  of  song,  and  not  a  particularly  successful  at- 
tempt. The  title  Heme's  Feast  has  been  placed  at 
the  head  of  this  piece  for  reasons  which  will  be 
obvious  to  the  reader  as  he  goes  along.  It  is  the 
piece  entered  in  the  Auctioneer's  Catalogue  as 
No.  5  among  the  items  of  Unpublished  Matter  in 
Note  Book  III,  and  is  described  as 

"A  rather  long  Composition  of  a  bantering  Fantasy 
—Begins:  'Ye  devils  black  and  great,  ghosts  white,' 
varying  metres,  some  lines  being  very  short,  e.g.  'Not 
a  snake  /  In  the  brake.'  " 

The  six  pages  occupied  by  Heme's  Feast  in  the 
Note  Book  are  III  *  6  r.  and  v.,  7  r.  and  v.,  8  v., 
and  10  v.  It  is  written  in  ink,  and  probably  be- 
longs, like  most  of  the  Book's  contents,  to  the  year 
1822. 

Herne's  Feast 

Ye  devils  black  &  spectres  white 
Fairies  all  green,  &  angels  blue 

Through  the  white  mist  on  Midsummers  night 
Hither  come  hither  over  the  dew  4 

CI083 


Not  a  snake 
In  the  brake 
Shall  awake 

With  you—  s 

But  a  snail 
With  his  trail 
Shall  you 

Pursue  12 

To  the  cave 
And  the  grave 
And  the  wave 

Bid  adieu  i« 

The  bat  &  the  owl  like  barn-door  fowl 
Are  asleep  in  the  tower  &  hollow  tree 
On  a  willow  doth  sit,  with  a  mazed  wit— 
The  nightingale  nodding  drowsily  20 

Only  the  brook  below  in  the  glen 
Is  awake  &  singing  .  .  . 

halloo  haloo 
Who  are  these  quaint  ones? 

The  fairies  are  we 
Over  covert  &  meadow  we  tripped  all  free    24 
Singing  so  free  across  mountain  &  sea 
Our  sweet  &  inaudible  wanderings — 
The  bees  horn 

In  the  morn  28 

To  our  scorn 

Made  a  tune 
Then  was  blown 

With  a  moan  32 

By  the  drone 
His  at  noon.— 

C109J" 


The  gnats  with  their  hum 

Made  us  both  deaf  &  dumb  36 

In  their  dance  on  the  glance  of  the  evening  sun 

But  we  past  on  the  wave 

Of  the  vapours  which  pave 
The  regions  of  day  till  our  journey  was  done  « 

Though  our  feet  were  well  shod 

Yet  the  sunbeams  we  trod 
Were  too  sharp  &  too  hard  for  our  delicate  palms 

But  there  fell  from  aloft  44 

A  carpet  more  soft 
When  twilight  was  cast  on  the  Oceans  calms 

And  when  we  came[  ?]  where  the  spirits  of  night 

Were  mending  the  roses  with  mild  moonlight       « 
And  the  shooting  stars  fell 
O  then  we  sped  well 
*  *  * 

A  school  boy  lay  near  a  pond  in  a  copse 

Blackberries  just  were  out  of  bloom  52 

And  the  golden  bloom  of  the  sunny  broom 
The  pine  cones  they  fell  like  thunder  claps 

When  the  languid  noon  breathed  so  hard  in  its  trance 
That  it  wakened  the  sleeping  fir  tree  tops. —  se 

Under  a  branch  all  leafless  &  bare 

He  was  watching  the  motes  in  their  onion  copse 
Rolling  like  worlds  through  the  de  [ad-still  air] 

And  he  closed  his  eyes  at  last  to  see  60 

The  network  of  darkness  woven  inside 
Till  the  fire  tailed  stars  of  the  night  of  his  brain 
Like  birds  round  a  pool  did  flutter  quiver  &  glide 
And  then  he  would  open  them  wide  again  [.        64 

Dion 


Some  pains  were  devoted  to  this  composition; 
and  in  the  end  the  true  Shelley  awoke  sufficiently 
to  close  on  an  almost  serious  note.  Before  he  had 
attained  to  the  degree  of  charm  that  lines  3  and  4 
possess  he  had  for  some  occult  reason  written  goth 
over  devils:  he  had  also  supplied  the  alternative 
readings  great  ghosts  for  spectres,  and  spirits  for 
angels,  had  made  a  false  start  of  line  2  with  Angels 
and  struck  it  out,  and  two  false  starts  for  line  3,  one 
of  which  is  clearly  enough  Over  the,  while  the 
other  I  will  not  guarantee  for  To  Heme's  feast  on 
the,  though  I  firmly  believe  it  to  be  that.  In  the 
short  line  8  the  first  word  is  a  smear,  probably 
meant  for  With.  Line  11  was  once  Shall  avail; 
but  that  is  boldly  cancelled  in  defiance  of  the  norm 
of  the  metre  in  this  part.  No  punctuation  has  been 
supplied  above:  if  it  were,  the  sense  would  pre- 
sumably be  indicated  by  a  full  stop  at  Pursue  and  a 
note  of  exclamation  at  adieu.  At  the  foot  of  the 
page,  without  any  particular  relevancy,  is  the  word 
Every.  In  Lines  5  to  16  the  short  jumps  are  really 
in  the  same  metre  as  lines  3  and  4,  harmonious  with 
the  rest,  only  they  have  some  extra  rhymes  of  a 
skittish  kind  which  Shelley  chose  to  display. 
There  is  a  cancelled  version  of  line  17— 

The  owl  &  the  nightingale  dimly  roost 

and  line  18  seems  to  have  read  at  first, 

Are  asleep  in  the  tower  &  tower  &  church  [, 


the  first  tower  having  of  course  been  written  acci- 
dentally for  tree,  which  is  written  over  it  and 
struck  out  again  with  the  rest  of  the  line:  then 
spire  &  hollow  tree  was  inserted,  spire  being  can- 
celled in  its  turn  and  tower  restored.  There  is  a 
false  start,  And,  for  line  19;  and  line  21  at  first 
started  with  Only  the  [brook?]  in  the  glen;  but 
glen  was  struck  out  in  favour  of  [below?']  in  the 
glen.  What  the  words  given  in  the  text  as  brook 
and  below  positively  are,  I  should  be  sorry  to  state 
upon  oath:  they  are  so  ill  written  in  a  context  so 
devoid  of  any  guiding  sense,  that  they  might  be 
almost  anything  in  reason  or  even  in  unreason.  A 
brook  is  not  an  unlikely  thing  to  find  in  a  glen ;  and 
the  first  of  the  two  cryptic  words  would  do  pretty 
well  for  brook ;  but  then  halloo  is  an  unlikely  bur- 
den for  a  brook's  song.  Line  22  first  began  with 
Is  singing,  but  that  immediately  gave  place  to  Is 
awake  &  singing;  then  there  is  a  cancelled  start 
for  the  complement  of  the  line,  am,  indicative  of  a 
passing  intention  to  let  whatever  it  was  that  was 
singing  sing  amen  amen  instead  of  halloo  haloo. 
Amen  is  a  doubtful  sort  of  brook-babble;  but  I  in- 
cline to  the  view  that  he  wrote  brook  and  meant  to 
cancel  in  the  along  with  the  first  glen.  Line  23  was 
originally 

Who  are  these  ? 

The  fairies  are  we  [ ; 

and  lines  24  to  26  show  the  following  variations 

C"2  3 


Over  )  .    1&  meadow  we  tripped  all  free 

(mountain  J 

Over  the  mountains  &  over  the  sea 

Singing  our  silver  wanderings — 


The  last  word  in  line  24  is  a  series  of  minute  blots 
which  we  might  dissect  and  hollow  out  and  convert 
into  most  of  the  letters  of  the  alphabet;  but  I  can- 
not think  of  any  word  of  four  letters  except  free 
that  has  indisputable  claims  of  rhyme  and  sense  to 
complete  the  passage.  Its  repetition  in  the  next 
line  is  doubtless  an  accident  of  unregenerate  revi- 
sion. 

Line  27  starts  another  little  series  of  lines  con- 
sisting of  some  three  syllables  a  piece;  but  I  grieve 
to  record  that  they  do  not  fall  into  so  practicable  a 
form  and  order  as  the  first  lot  (lines  5  to  16)  with- 
out a  certain  amount  of  critical  assumption.  They 
stand  in  sober  truth  thus,  several  being  struck 
through— 

But  the  gnats 
And  the 
The  bees  horn 
In  the  morn 
And  To  our  scorn 

Was  blown 
At  noon  .  . 

Made  a  tune 
And  the  gnats  pipe 
When  the 

CH33 


Then  at  noon 

The 

And  Then  was  blown 

Here  the  uncancelled  words  But  the  gnats  are  re- 
dundant; and  the  word  after  bees  is  so  much 
blotted  that  it  might  for  all  we  can  see  be  hum. 
The  two  words  bees  and  horn  look  at  first  as  if 
meant  to  be  struck  out;  but  in  reality  when  Shelley 
finished  line  18  on  the  opposite  page  he  was  using 
his  very  worst  pen,  and,  having  done  the  noisy 
insect  page  and  gone  back  to  write  spire  &  hollow 
and  cancel  spire  for  tower,  the  exasperating  spring- 
backed  book  called  Cyprian  shut  itself  up  more  suo 
and  impressed  the  greater  part  of  the  ampersand 
like  a  bend  sinister  across  bees,  and  enough  of  spire 
and  its  cancelling  on  horn  to  disguise  it  completely. 
Hence  it  is  to  be  judged  that  the  intention  was  to 
cancel  But  the  gnats  as  well  as  And  the;  and  the 
residuum  then  shapes  rather  ingeniously  into  lines 
27  t0  37>  ending  prettily  enough  though  with  the 
false  rhyme  of  sun  with  hum  and  dumb,  if  indeed 
the  rhyme-word  sun  was  not  meant  to  be  satisfied 
with  the  word  done  in  line  40  for  a  mate. 

The  fauna  of  this  portentous  piece  might  have 
included  crickets,  as  evidenced  by  the  cancelled 
words  The  crickets  at  the  bottom  of  the  page  after 
line  37;  but  fortunately  the  fairies  passed  on  the 
wave  of  certain  vapours  and  trod  certain  sunbeams, 
leading  the  poet  gradually  into  a  region  which  re- 

C"43 


calls  some  of  the  dignified  exuberance  of  movement 
which  characterizes  Prometheus  Unbound.  In- 
deed we  come  presently  on  thoughts  which,  though 
over  fancifully  expressed,  are  serious  and  Shel- 
leyan;  and  there  are  genuine  cases  of  parallelism 
between  this  fantastic  piece  of  work  and  passages 
of  Prometheus.  To  keep  pace  with  the  aban- 
doned readings,  we  must  note  the  variations  in  lines 
38  to  51.  In  38  sea  stands  cancelled  in  favour  of 
wave;  and  before  line  40  was  hammered  out,  Shel- 
ley had  written  thus— 

The  Of  the  hosts 

earth  in  the 
The  marshes  &  meads 

regions  of  morn  [  — 

whereof  nearly  every  word  was  struck  out.  In  line 
41  are  is  altered  to  were;  and  in  line  43  the  reading 
so  sharp  &  so  hard  has  been  changed  to  that  of  the 
text  by  twice  writing  too  so  as  to  obscure  so.  Lines 
44  and  45  were  at  first 

But  the  twilight  aloft 

Was  more 

Made  a  carpet  more  soft 

Was  more  being  cancelled.  Line  47  was  first  writ- 
ten And  when  we  are  where  &c. ;  but  a  rather  poor 
c  was  afterwards  inserted  before  are.  I  have  not 
the  least  doubt  about  the  intention,  not  strictly  ful- 
filled, of  changing  are  to  came ;  but  it  might  be  con- 

C"S3 


tended  that  Shelley  tried  to  alter  are  to  were  and 
did  not  succeed  very  well.  There  are  one  or  two 
faintly  written  and  cancelled  words  belonging  to 
lines  48  to  50;  and  it  seems  to  have  been  intended 
to  substitute  O  then  we  sped  well  for  O  there  we 
sped  well\  but  no  particulars  of  the  good  speed  of 
the  fairies  are  expressly  given  as  such  in  this  their 
lilt.  Nevertheless,  the  somewhat  peculiar  use  of 
palms  to  describe  the  soles  of  the  feet  at  once  recalls 
the  beautiful  passage  in  Prometheus — 

Our  feet  now,  every  palm, 
Are  sandalled  with  calm, 
And  the  dew  of  our  wings  is  a  rain  of  balm; 

and  leads  us  to  travel  back  from  the  Spirits  of  the 
fourth  act  to  those  of  the  first  act,  where  these  "gen- 
tle guides  and  guardians"  of  "heaven-oppressed 
mortality"  recount  their  experiences,  and  one  who 
has  slept  "on  a  poet's  lips,"  the  poet  that  fed 

on  the  aerial  kisses 
Of  shapes  that  haunt  thought's  wildernesses, 

tells  us  that 

He  will  watch  from  dawn  to  gloom 

The  lake-reflected  sun  illume 

The  yellow  bees  in  the  ivy-bloom, 

Nor  heed  nor  see,  what  things  they  be ; 

But  from  these  create  he  can 

Forms  more  real  than  living  man, 

Nurslings  of  immortality  1 

C"63 


If  Shelley  had  any  set  conception  of  a  scheme  for 
this  poem,  the  interest  would  clearly  have  cen- 
tred in  the  notes  of  travel  of  the  fairies;  but  all  we 
have  by  way  of  specimen  of  those  notes  is  the 
passage  from  line  51  to  line  64,  describing  a  dreamy 
school-boy  watching  the  motes  over  some  onion- 
flowers;  and  here  we  have  the  unexalted  double  of 
the  poet  who  watched  the  yellow  bees  in  the  ivy 
bloom.  Shelley  was  decidedly  on  the  verge  of  re- 
turning to  serious  poetry,  and  took  pains  over  the 
elaboration  of  his  school-boy.  Were  it  not  for  the 
vulgar  associations  of  the  word  onion,  we  should 
almost  think  he  had  got  over  the  fooling  fit  com- 
pletely: let  us  remember,  moreover,  how  ex- 
quisitely, in  a  few  semi-rhythmical  words,  Walt 
Whitman  cast  the  radiance  of  poesy  upon  those 
homely  vegetables  potatoes  and  onions— 

The  delicate  spear  of  the  onion  pierces  upward,  .  .  . 
Out  of  its  little  hill  faithfully  rise  the  potato's  dark 
green  leaves,1 — 

and  we  shall  perhaps  attribute  the  abandonment  of 
this  curious  poem  to  the  fact  that  Shelley  had  in- 
deed, onions  or  no  onions,  opened  his  eyes  "wide 
again"  with  his  school-boy  of  the  "onion-copse"  to 
behold  the  supernal  beauties  of  the  visible  universe 
of  which  he  was  so  great,  so  inspired,  so  miraculous 
an  interpreter. 

1  This  Compost. 

C"73 


The  first  thing  cancelled  in  this  school-boy  part 
of  the  poem  is  this — 

One  school  boy  sate  in  a  copse 
And  his  lesson  was  [ — 

and  the  next  stage  of  composition  was 

A  schoolboy  sate  in  a  fir  tree  woo[d]  — 

in  which  line  he  at  once  substituted  a  nut-tree-copse 
for  his  abortive  fir  tree  wood  and  altered  sate  to  lay. 
In  this  opening  he  was  not  very  circumspect  in  his 
cancellings ;  and  he  left  a  fir  tree  lying  around  close 
to  the  copse ;  but  his  instinct  was  so  truly  awake  by 
then  that  I  do  not  believe  he  meant  us  to  read, 
abnormally, 

A  school  boy  lay  near  a  pond  in  a  fir  tree  copse. 

Although  I  retain  line  52  in  the  text  it  is  lightly 
crossed  through  together  with  a  false  start,  In  half 
asleep,  and  the  line 

And  he  was  watching  the  onion 

which  would  probably  have  been  completed  with 
crops  or  tops  if  the  poet  had  been  alive  to  the  im- 
portance of  my  present  undertaking.  He  also 
abandoned  the  openings  The  milk  and  But  the 
gnats  was,  written  over  other  faintly  written  words 
that  cannot  now  be  read.  Lines  54  to  56  are  altered 
from 

C"83 


The  fir  cones  were  falling  like  thunder  claps 
When  the  faint  noon  breathed  so  hard  in  its  sleep 
And  wakened  the  sleeping  fir  tree  tops. — 

And  an  alternative  reading,  lazy  for  languid,  was 
supplied ;  and  the  artistic  conscience  of  Shelley  was 
reproached  by  the  jingle  of  sleep  in  one  line  and 
sleeping  in  the  next;  for  he  underlined  (with  a  dif- 
ferent pen  and  ink  from  that  used  in  writing  the 
page)  the  word  sleeping  and  struck  out  sleep  in 
favour  of  a  word  which  I  read  as  trance:  it  is  the 
only  word  that  would  improve  upon  sleep  here; 
and  neither  one  nor  the  other  is  a  rhyme  for  any- 
thing in  its  neighbourhood.  There  is  a  false  start, 
And,  for  line  57.  Lines  58  to  60  suffered  a  grievous 
accident.  That  page  is  the  verso  of  a  leaf  which 
with  the  leaf  facing  it  forms  the  centre  section  of 
the  sheet;  and  on  the  opposite  page  the  poet  had 
pencilled  some  titles  of  books.  Having  occasion  to 
tear  off  the  lowest  third  of  that  leaf,  he  seems  to 
have  torn  off  the  right-hand  bottom  corner  of  the 
corresponding  leaf  with  it;  and  in  that  corner  were 
written  the  ends  of  lines  58,  59  and  60.  For  line  58 
I  have  had  to  supply  the  pse  in  copse;  line  59  ends 
with  de,  and  I  have  supplied  dead-still  air  between 
hooks  instead  of  leaving  the  adjective  or  adjectives 
to  the  imagination ;  while  in  line  60  I  have  com- 
pleted last  from  la  and  see  from  se.  As  to  this  line 
I  have  no  misgiving,  as  lines  61  to  64  need  that 
word  see  to  join  up  the  sense  of  this  final  passage, 

Cn9] 


which  is  really  characteristic  and  quite  musical, 
though  faintly  tinctured  with  the  prevalent  extrava- 
gance of  the  whole  piece.  Line  61  shows  within  as 
a  rejected  variant  of  inside ;  in  line  62  world  stands 
cancelled  in  favour  of  night;  and  between 63  and 64 
are  written  the  words  the  moths,  as  if  it  was  in- 
tended to  consider  the  relative  merits  of  moths  and 
birds  for  the  simile  in  this  place.  As  to  this 
penultimate  line,  I  do  not  think  it  was  the  intention 
that  it  should  be  so  long  by  a  foot  as  it  is.  The 
three  words  flutter,  quiver,  and  glide  are  all  left 
standing;  the  chances  are  that  either  flutter  or 
quiver  was  meant  to  come  out,— probably  flutter; 
but  as  the  action  of  swallows  about  a  pool  is  beau- 
tifully depicted,  we  may  rejoice  to  accept  the  line, 
metrical  redundancy  and  all.  One  would  like  to 
know  how  far  Shelley  had  in  mind  that  delightful 
line  of  Virgil's,  in  the  First  Georgic — 

Aut  arguta  lacus  circumvolitavit  hirundo, 

which,  by  the  by,  if  we  are  to  credit  Commenta- 
tor Servius,  Virgil  had  himself  conveyed  directly 
from  Varro,  who  in  turn  had  translated  it  from  the 
Greek  of  Aratus. 

On  the  10th  of  April  1822  Shelley  wrote  from 
Pisa  to  John  Gisborne,  then  in  London,  a  letter 
already  quoted  under  the  head  of  Cyprian,  which 
shows  that  he  was  much  preoccupied  with  Goethe's 
Faust  that  spring.    He  had  been  translating  scenes 

C1203 


from  that  work,  as  well  as  those  from  Calderon's 
play  El  Magico  Prodigioso,  to  form  the  basis  of  a 
paper  which  he  meant  to  contribute  to  "our  jour- 
nal," as  he  called  The  Liberal.  As  we  have  seen,  he 
was  "well  content  with  those  from  Calderon,  which 
in  fact,"  says  he,  "gave  me  very  little  trouble ;  but 
those  from  Faust — I  feel  how  imperfect  a  repre- 
sentation, even  with  all  the  licence  I  assume  to 
figure  to  myself  how  Goethe  would  have  written  in 
English,  my  words  convey.  No  one  but  Coleridge 
is  capable  of  this  work." 

In  the  same  letter  he  says  he  did  not  under- 
stand the  Hartz  Mountain  scene  until  he  had  seen 
Retsch's  outline  etching  of  the  subject;  but  at  the 
time  of  writing  he  had  got  over  his  difficulties  and 
said  he  would  have  sent  Gisborne  his  version  but 
for  fear  that  the  postage  would  not  be  charged  by 
his  publisher  Oilier  to  his  account.  How  com- 
pletely Shelley  had  entered  into  the  spirit  of 
Goethe's  titanic  grotesque,  behind  which  the 
philosophy  of  the  great  German  looms  large,  we 
know  from  the  Faust  scenes  which  have  been  in- 
cluded in  Shelley's  published  works  for  the  best 
part  of  a  century.  The  splendour  of  the  versifica- 
tion in  the  most  turbulent  passages  of  the  Walpur-. 
gisnacht  is  a  thing  to  wonder  at;  and  the  freedom 
of  the  metre  and  vocabulary  leave  nothing  to  desire. 

If  we  can  but  picture  Shelley  setting  himself 
exercises  in  that  difficult  task  of  finding  the  right 
metrical  and  verbal  representation  of  his  great 

CI2I3 


original  in  his  own  language,  we  should  naturally 
expect  him  to  take  some  subject  where  the  fable, 
if  any,  is  emancipated  from  the  ordinary  conditions 
of  the  natural  world.  Windsor  Forest,  and  Heme's 
Oak,  and  Fairies— even  the  sham  Fairies  of  Merry 
Wives  of  Windsor  who  pretend  to  the  performance 
of  a  festal  dance  round  the  Oak — 

But  till  'tis  one  a  clocke, 
Our  dance  of  Custome,  round  about  the  Oke 
Of  Heme  the  Hunter,  let  us  not  forget — 

all  this  and  all  the  incredible  phenomena  of  the 
poetic  fragment  which  I  have  called  Heme's  Feast, 
would  seem  to  be  the  most  natural  things  for  a  poet 
to  try  his  wings  upon  when  about  to  essay  the 
realization  in  English  of  Goethe's  Walpurgisnacht: 
it  would  be  splendid  practice;  and  if  we  may 
regard  the  production  of  Heme's  Feast  as  an  epi- 
sode in  Shelley's  struggle  to  do  what  he  thought 
Coleridge  was  the  only  person  qualified  to  do— to 
make  the  Hartz  Mountain  scene  come  right  in 
English— then  we  certainly  should  not  begrudge 
him  a  much  longer  attack  of  poetic  fooling. 

To  illustrate  the  position  suggested  for  Heme's 
Feast,  I  cannot  do  better  than  set  out  here  in  close 
proximity  to  that  performance  the  stupendous  ver- 
sion of  the  Chorus  of  Witches  as  executed  by  our 
master  in  the  art  of  translation— call  it,  if  you  will, 
transfiguration. 


Chorus  of  Witches. 

The  stubble  is  yellow,  the  corn  is  green, 

Now  to  the  Brocken  the  witches  go ; 
The  mighty  multitude  here  may  be  seen 

Gathering,  wizard  and  witch,  below. 
Sir  Urian  is  sitting  aloft  in  the  air; 

Hey  over  stock. !  and  hey  over  stone ! 

'Twixt  witches  and  incubi,  what  shall  be  done? 
Tell  it  who  dare  1  tell  it  who  dare ! 

A  Voice. 

Upon  a  sow-swine,  whose  farrows  were  nine, 
Old  Baubo  rideth  alone. 

Chorus. 

Honour  to  her  to  whom  honour  is  due, 
Old  mother  Baubo,  honour  to  you  ! 
An  able  sow,  with  old  Baubo  upon  her, 
Is  worthy  of  glory,  and  worthy  of  honour  1 
The  legion  of  witches  is  coming  behind, 
Darkening  the  night,  and  outspeeding  the  wind— 

A  Voice. 
Which  way  comest  thou? 

A  Voice. 

Over  Ilsenstein; 
The  owl  was  awake  in  the  white  moon-shine; 

I  saw  her  at  rest  in  her  downy  nest, 
And  she  stared  at  me  with  her  broad  bright  eyne. 

D23] 


Voices. 

And  you  may  now  as  well  take  your  course  on  to  Hell, 
Since  you  ride  so  fast  on  the  headlong  blast. 

A  Voice. 

She  dropt  poison  upon  me  as  I  past. 
Here  are  the  wounds — 

Chorus  of  Witches. 

Come  away!    Come  along! 
The  way  is  wide,  the  way  is  long, 
But  what  is  that  for  a  Bedlam  throng? 
Stick  with  the  prong,  and  scratch  with  the  broom. 
The  child  in  the  cradle  lies  strangled  at  home, 
And  the  mother  is  clapping  her  hands. — 

Semichorus  of  Wizards  I. 

We  glide  in 
Like  snails  when  the  women  are  all  away ; 
And  from  a  house  once  given  over  to  sin 
Woman  has  a  thousand  steps  to  stray. 

Semichorus  II. 

A  thousand  steps  must  a  woman  take 
Where  a  man  but  a  single  spring  will  make. 

Voices  above. 
Come  with  us,  come  with  us,  from  Felsensee. 

D243 


Voices  below. 

With  what  joy  would  we  fly  through  the  upper  sky ! 
We  are  washed,  we  are  'nointed,  stark  naked  are  we ; 
But  our  toil  and  our  pain  are  for  ever  in  vain. 

Both  Choruses. 

The  wind  is  still,  the  stars  are  fled, 
The  melancholy  moon  is  dead; 
The  magic  notes,  like  spark  on  spark, 
Drizzle,  whistling  through  the  dark. 
Come  away  I 

Voices  below. 
Stay,  oh,  stay  I 

Voices  above. 

Out  of  the  crannies  of  the  rocks, 
Who  calls? 

Voices  below. 

Oh,  let  me  join  your  flocks  ! 
I  three  hundred  years  have  striven 
To  catch  your  skirt  and  mount  to  Heaven,— 
And  still  in  vain.    Oh,  might  I  be 
With  company  akin  to  me ! 

Both  Choruses. 

Some  on  a  ram  and  some  on  a  prong, 

On  poles  and  on  broomsticks  we  flutter  along; 

Forlorn  is  the  wight  who  can  rise  not  to-night. 

CI25J" 


A  Half-Witch  below. 

I  have  been  tripping  this  many  an  hour: 
Are  the  others  already  so  far  before? 
No  quiet  at  home,  and  no  peace  abroad  I 
And  less  methinks  is  found  by  the  road. 

Chorus  of  Witches. 

Come  onward,  away  I  aroint  thee,  aroint ! 
A  witch  to  be  strong  must  anoint — anoint- 
Then  every  trough  will  be  boat  enough ; 
With  a  rag  for  a  sail  we  can  sweep  through  the  sky, 
Who  flies  not  to-night,  when  means  he  to  fly? 

Both  Choruses. 

We  cling  to  the  skirt,  and  we  strike  on  the  ground; 
Witch-legions  thicken  around  and  around ; 
Wizard-swarms  cover  the  heath  all  over. 

[They  descend. 

Of  the  miscellanies  interspersed  among  the  pages 
of  Heme's  Feast  the  first  (page  III  *  8  r.)  is  the 
memorandum  entered  in  the  Auction  Catalogue  as 
No.  6  among  the  items  of  Unpublished  Matter  in 
Note  Book  III.  It  is  not  a  very  promising  memo- 
randum; but  here  is  it:— 

Modern  Timon 
ist  Act. 

deserted  by  his  mistress     his  sensations— 
his  friend     his  plans  of  happiness  [. 

D26J- 


Page  III  *  9  r.  bears  a  pencilled  memorandum 
of  certain  French  works  which,  presumably,  the 
poet  meant  to  consult : 

Laplace  Essai  sur  les  Probabilites 
Les  Ouvrages  Geologiques  de  Cuvier 
Les  Ouvrages  de  [.  .  . 

Who  the  third  worthy  was  is  unrevealed,  the  bot- 
tom of  the  leaf  containing  that  information  having 
been  torn  off.  The  verso  of  the  torn  leaf  only  bears 
the  deleted  words 

I  love  thee  not  [, 

and  probably  that  sentence  is  all  it  ever  bore. 

Page  III  *  10  r.  bears  the  following  fragment 
written  in  ink:  — 

If  it 

One  word  has  changed  the  Universe  for  me — 
It  is  the  key  of  a  new  world,  &  opened 
The  blank  &  secret  [  .   .   . 

The  last  word  is  so  badly  written  that  I  really  can- 
not say  with  certainty  whether  it  is  meant  for  secret 
or  dull;  but  one  must  choose;  and  secret  commends 
itself  as  having  the  greater  probability.  On 
III  *  n  r.  (verso  blank)  is  a  still  shorter  fragment 
written  in  ink: — 

And  have  we  trodden  the  same  paths  together 
Even  from  our  happy  [  .  .  . 


The  next  poem  to  be  dealt  with  affords  us  the 
pleasure  of  supplying  two  lines  which  have  been 
obviously  wanting  ever  since  1824,  and  should  cer- 
tainly have  been  "discovered"  two  or  three  times 
over.  The  poem  now  completely  printed  for  the 
first  time  has  no  more  distinctive  title  than  Lines, 
and  none  at  all  in  the  manuscript  book. 

Lines 

1]      Far  far  away,  o  ye 
Halcyons  of  Memory 
Seek  some  far  calmer  nest 
Than  this  abandoned  breast 
No  news  of  your  false  spring 
To  my  hearts  winter  bring 
Once  having  gone  in  vain 
Ye  come  again. — 

11]     Vultures  who  build  your  bowers 
High  in  the  Futures  towers 
Wake,  for  the  spirits  blast 
Over  my  head  has  past 
Wrecked  hopes  on  hopes  are  spread 
Dying  joys  choked  by  dead 
Will  serve  your  beaks  for  prey 
Many  a  day. 

Although  this  gem  is  far  less  elaborate  in  its 
drafting  than  many  of  Shelley's  brief  lyrics,  an  un- 
usual degree  of  care  was  taken  to  make  the  text 


safe.  The  draft  of  each  stanza  fills  but  one  small 
page  in  this  book  of  1822  which  he  called  Cyprian ; 
and  the  writing  is  large.  The  pages  are  III  *  12  r. 
and  13  r. ;  on  these  the  song  was  written  roughly 
enough  with  a  pencil ;  it  was  not  badly  rubbed ;  and 
yet  the  poet  wrote  every  line  in  ink  over  the  corre- 
sponding pencilled  line— not  attempting  to  ink  the 
strokes  over,  or  even  to  make  any  individual  ink- 
stroke  coincide  with  its  pencilled  forerunner. 
Thus  we  can  read  the  song  in  both  forms,  with  the 
result  that  we  find  but  little  divergence  between 
the  final  readings  of  the  pencilled  draft,  and  the 
text  of  the  superimposed  pen  and  ink  copy.  As 
for  the  text,  it  leaps  unflurried  to  the  editorial  eye — 
a  thing  complete,  harmonious,  and  symmetrical, 
not  much  punctuated,  as  usual,  but  really  not  want- 
ing any  stops  to  bring  out  its  sense.  And  yet  an  evil 
hap  has  pursued  it  from  the  year  1824  when  Mary 
Shelley  published  it  in  the  Posthumous  Poems,  till 
the  present  time.  There  is  a  misreading  of  an  im- 
portant word;  and  one  couplet  is  omitted  from  the 
second  stanza,  obviously  through  simple  oversight. 
Reading  the  pencil  draft  first,  we  find  the  four 
opening  lines,  to  the  halcyons,  without  erasure  or 
revision.  Before  the  fifth  line  was  written,  the  in- 
evitable vultures  were  already  flapping  in  the  back 
of  the  poet's  mind;  and  line  4  is  followed  by  the 
incomplete  line, 

Vultures  old, 


rejected  at  once  and  followed  in  turn  by 

Cormorants  who  build  y*  bower 
Tell  not  of  azure  seas 
To  my  hearts  winter  bring 

which  line  was  at  once  rejected:  so  far  as  that 
stanza  was  concerned,  Shelley  had  given  up  his 
cormorants,  and  also  his  vultures,  and  made  up  his 
mind  to  deal  there  only  with  halcyons.  He  then 
wrote  lines  4  to  8  as  in  the  text  with  but  one  hesita- 
tion: he  set  down  as  a  trial,  and  rejected,  cold  win- 
ter for  heart's  winter,  and  passed  on  to  stanza  II. 
Here  again  the  pencilling  shows  no  erasure  or  de- 
bate for  four  lines;  but  for  the  fifth  line  there  is 
the  cancelled  reading  Wrecked  in  the  stream ;  and 
then  lines  5  to  7  are  written  fluently  without 
change;  line  8,  by  an  apparently  mechanical  acci- 
dent, was  first  written 

For  many  a  year 

and  then,  after  due  cancellation, 

Many  a  day. 

Mary  Shelley  omitted  the  essential  couplet  rousing 
the  vultures  and  substituted  Withered  for  Wrecked, 
to  the  detriment  of  sense  and  metre.  There  is  no 
possibility  of  doubt,  however,  the  word  being  writ- 
ten three  times  and  quite  clearly  Wrecked  both  in 
pencil  and  in  ink.    The  sixth  line  is  immeasurably 

C 130;] 


improved  by  the  omission  of  a  word  not  authorized 

by  the  manuscript— the  word  the.    Hitherto  it  has 

been 

Dying  joys  choked  by  the  dead, 

sometimes  with  an  intrusive  comma  after  joys  and 
sometimes  without.  The  sense  is  thus  subverted: 
Shelley  clearly  meant — dying  joys  choked  by  dead 
joys,  not  dying  joys  choked  by  dead  people.  In  the 
whole  sixteen  lines  of  the  pen  and  ink  copy  there 
is  no  sign  of  change  currente  calamo  save  that 
after  writing  the  couplet  now  given  for  the  first 
time,  Shelley  drew  a  faint  line  through  Wake  and 
then  wrote  over  it,  not  Up  or  Come  or  Rise,  but 
just  Wake  again.  How  many  variants  had  oc- 
curred to  his  fastidious  taste  in  the  interval  of  per- 
haps a  moment,  we  can  never  know;  but  Wake  is 
better  than  any  conceivable  word ;  and  the  restored 
couplet  leaves  one  more  of  his  lyrics  absolutely 
perfect. 

The  two  pages  with  which  we  have  been  dealing 
yield  us  quite  enough  to  leave  a  certain  indifference 
as  to  the  product  of  their  versos.  That  of  the  first 
is  blank;  but  that  of  the  second  has  two  words  on  it. 
They  are  written  in  ink  and  not  deleted,  and  may 
be  reasonably  connected  with  the  Lines  "Far  far 
away,  o  ye",  for  they  are 

Ye  birds 

which,  considering  the  ornithological  character  of 
the  imagery  of  this  sad  song,  are  more  likely  to 

EI3I3 


belong  to  it  than  to  any  other.    They  might  be  an 
abortive  line  for  stanza  II — 

Ye  birds  who  build  your  bowers. 

Passing  from  III  *  13  v.  to  III  *  14  r.  we  come 
to  one  more  fragment  for  which  the  draft  does 
something,  but  not  enough  to  fill  the  editorial  soul 
with  joy.  The  piece  known  as  The  World's  Wan- 
derers fills  that  page  and  the  next,  III  *  14  v. 

The  World's  Wanderers. 


I]  Tell  me  star,  whose  wings  of  light 

Speed  thee  on  thy  fiery  flight 
In  what  cavern  of  the  night 

Will  thy  pinions  close  now— 
Tell  me  Moon,  thou  pale  &  grey 
Pilgrim  of  Heaven's  homeless  way 
In  what  depth  of  night  or  day 

Seekest  thou,  repose  now? 

II]  Weary  wind  who  wanderest 
Like  the  world's  rejected  guest 
Hast  thou  still  some  secret  nest 

On  some  hill  or  billow — 
Restless  Life,  whose  spirit  flows 
From  birth  to  death  without  repose 
From  [  .  .  . 

As  it  is  on  a  page  between  the  songs  "Far,  far 
away"  and  "Tell  me,  star"  that  the  words  Ye  birds 
stand  alone,  they  may  possibly  have  been  a  note  for 

D323 


a  stanza  beginning  "Tell  me,  ye  birds"  in  this  last 
song.  It  was  in  the  Posthumous  Poems  that  lines  i 
to  12  first  appeared,  without  any  indication  that 
there  was  something  omitted.  When  I  reprinted 
this  piece  in  1877  I  drew  attention  to  the  striking 
character  of  the  song's  incompleteness,  the  three 
stanzas  into  which  the  lines  were  then  divided  be- 
ing so  finely  finished  that  it  was  hard  to  believe 
Shelley  had  not  written  four  more  lines  with  pillow 
at  the  end  of  the  fourth  as  the  rhyme  for  billow.  I 
hazarded  the  suspicion  that  such  a  termination  still 
remained  "to  be  found  in  his  note-books."  Every- 
thing comes  to  him  who  waits;  and  here  in  the 
book  called  Cyprian  is  more  than  half  of  the  miss- 
ing stave.  For  "restless  Life"  passing  "from  birth 
to  death  without  repose,"  it  would  be  appropriate 
enough  to  find  repose  in  some  association  with  a 
grassy  pillow;  but  we  must  ransack  yet  another 
note-book  or  two, — say  the  one  from  which  the 
poet's  widow  got  her  reading  of  the  first  line's 
opening,  "Tell  me,  thou  star."  The  word  in  in  her 
second  line  may  be  defended  without  another 
manuscript.  It  is  very  indistinct  in  this  one:  I 
think  it  is  meant  for  on ;  but,  as  it  was  the  exception, 
not  the  rule,  when  Shelley  in  drafting  rapidly 
dotted  his  i  or  closed  the  top  of  his  0,  this  reading 
is  to  some  extent  a  matter  of  taste;  and  de  gustibus 
non  est  disputandum.  Again  in  line  3  is  a  curious 
point,— whether  thy  has  been  changed  to  the  or  the 
to  thy  before  night.    I  accept  Mary  Shelley's  read- 

D33  3 


ing,  the.  For  line  4  of  this  manuscript  he  began 
with  Finding  thou — he  meant  Findest  thou;  and 
was  no  doubt  going  to  add  repose  now,  but  his 
mind  leapt  over  the  opening  to  the  close  of  the  next 
stave  and  anticipated  the  need  for  repose  there;  so 
he  interpolated  the  line  4  given  above.  Line  6  was 
originally 

Climbing  oer  Heaven's  homeless  way  [— 

but  he  altered  it  to  Pilgrim  of  with  magic  effect. 
In  line  7  he  wrote  dell  and  changed  the  reading  to 
depth  with  equal  effect.  Seekest  in  the  line  begins 
with  an  S  on  a  D,  which  shows  that  his  mind  had 
shaped  first  Dost  thou  seek  and  instantly  saw  how 
to  get  rid  of  half  a  mouthful  of  consonants.  There 
is  a  comma  at  thou ;  but  this  is  rather  a  regrettable 
incident  (probably  accident),  as  commas  are  very 
scarce  in  these  drafts  or  finished  copies.  Notes  of 
interrogation  are  rarer  still ;  but  the  one  addressed 
to  the  moon  is  positively  authentic. 

The  second  line  in  stanza  II— for  it  now  seems 
clear  that  there  were  to  be  two  eight-line  stanzas- 
took  up  some  deal  of  thought:  he  began  with  O'er 
the  the  earths  and  was  obviously  going  to  add 
[  ]  breast,  but  yielded  to  the  claims  of  guest, 

and  wrote  Like  an  undesired,  then  changing  to  the 
sky's  rejected  guest,  and  at  last  substituting  world's 
for  sky's,  which  procedure  leaves  us  in  possession  of 

£134-3 


Mary  Shelley's  reading.  Lines  3  and  4  of  the 
stanza  are  not  strictly  as  she  gives  them  :— 

Hast  thou  still  some  secret  nest 
On  the  tree  or  billow? — 

Those  words  he  did  write;  but  he  struck  out  the 
tree  very  decidedly  and  wrote  some  hill  above  it: 
the  cancelling  stroke  goes  in  an  attenuated  form 
through  or  and  partly  through  billow.  I  do  not 
think  he  meant  to  cancel  them:  he  seldom  did  ex- 
actly what  he  meant  with  these  impetuous  strokes. 
I  think  he  meant  to  retain  On  some  hill  or  billow 
and  would  have  put  a  for  some  in  the  line  before, 
had  he  gone  over  it  all  again. 

We  are  now  nearing  the  point  somewhere  in  the 
interior  of  the  Note  Book  called  Cyprian  where 
one  of  Shelley's  latest  lyric  inspirations  was 
found  in  all  the  stages  of  its  composition.  Pages 
III  *  15  r.  to  18  v.,  eight  pages  in  all,  are  occupied 
by  a  most  unpromising-looking  mass  of  Shelley's 
least  legible  penmanship— literally  penmanship, 
for  every  page  of  the  writing  is  wholly  in  ink.  The 
members  of  The  Bibliophile  Society  have  already 
had  before  them  in  the  Society's  Year  Book  for 
1910  some  account  of  this  poem;  but  it  is  necessary 
to  go  over  the  ground  again  in  this  present  work; 
moreover  I  stand  pledged  to  give  a  fuller  account 
than  I  there  gave  of  the  vicissitudes  of  this  lyric,  on 

D353 


which,  it  will  be  remembered,  I  bestowed  the  inev- 
itable title  of  The  Kiss.  It  will  be  well  to  give  in 
the  first  place,  as  in  the  Year  Book,  the  text  of  the 
poem  as  known  under  the  title  Lines,  or  "We  meet 
not  as  we  parted,"  up  to  the  year  of  Grace  1910. 


LINES 

We  meet  not  as  we  parted, 

We  feel  more  than  all  may  see, 

My  bosom  is  heavy-hearted, 
And  thine  full  of  doubt  for  me. 
One  moment  has  bound  the  free. 

That  moment  is  gone  for  ever, 

Like  lightning  that  flashed  and  died, 

Like  a  snowflake  upon  the  river, 
Like  a  sunbeam  upon  the  tide, 
Which  the  dark  shadows  hide. 

That  moment  from  time  was  singled 
As  the  first  of  a  life  of  pain. 

The  cup  of  its  joy  was  mingled 

— Delusion  too  sweet  though  vain ! 
Too  sweet  to  be  mine  again. 

Sweet  lips,  could  my  heart  have  hidden 
That  its  life  was  crushed  by  you, 

Ye  would  not  have  then  forbidden 
The  death  which  a  heart  so  true 
Sought  in  your  briny  dew. 

CI363 


Methinks  too  little  cost 
For  a  moment  so  found,  so  lost ! 

1822. 

These  twenty-two  lines  were  found  by  Garnett 
hard  on  half  a  century  ago  in  what  is  certainly  one 
of  the  most  tangled  wildernesses  of  the  Note  Books 
of  Shelley;  and  the  poem  occupied  a  distinguished 
position  in  that  treasurable  little  volume  of  his 
called  Relics  of  Shelley  (1862).  It  was  no  light 
task  to  make  sure  that,  in  the  eight  pages  of  puzzle- 
dom  devoted  to  this  composition,  there  were  but  22 
lines  which  were  meant  to  constitute  the  lyric 
finally  evolved  and  that  their  sequence  was  that  in- 
dicated in  the  Relics.  That  task,  however,  Garnett 
seems  to  have  accomplished.  And  yet,  for  all  its 
characteristic  charm,  the  lyric  as  set  out  in  1862  has 
something  like  the  cry  of  a  maimed  and  mangled 
thing.  The  first  line  starts  the  poem  in  a  metre  not 
fulfilling  the  lyric  conditions  of  the  whole.  There 
were  several  expressions  so  jarring  and  improbable 
that  one  felt  Shelley's  own  words  were  not  there— 
that  what  he  wrote  had  not  been  exhaustively  de- 
ciphered. And  in  the  final  couplet  there  are 
defects  of  articulation  such  as  Shelley  would  not 
have  passed  in  so  fastidiously  chastened  a  song  as 
this.  A  minute  examination  of  the  aforesaid  eight 
pages  of  manuscript  has  sufficed  to  remove  every 
flaw  in  the  marvellous  beauty  of  the  poem  which 
should  henceforth  stand  as  follows: — 

Ci373 


THE  KISS 

i]     We  meet  not  as  then  we  parted— 
We  feel  more  than  all  may  see 
My  bosom  is  heavy  hearted 
And  thine  full  of  doubt  for  me 
A  moment  has  bound  the  free 

n]     That  moment  is  gone  for  ever 

Like  lightning  it  flashed  and  died 
Like  a  snowflake  upon  the  river 
A  sunbeam  upon  the  tide — 
Which  the  dark  shadows  hide — 

ill]     That  moment  from  time  was  singled 
As  the  price  of  a  life  of  pain. — 
In  the  cup  of  its  joy  was  mingled 
Delusion  too  sweet  though  vain 
Too  sweet  to  be  mine  again 

iv]     Sweet  lips,  could  my  soul  not  have  hidden 
That  its  life  was  consumed  by  you 
Ye  would  not  have  then  forbidden 
The  death  which  a  heart  so  true 
Sought  in  your  burning  dew — 
That  methinks  were  too  little  cost 
For  a  moment  so  found,  so  lost  I 

Two  Cancelled  Passages 


O  fill  high  the  cup  with  ruin- 
Mix  delusion  &  madness  therein 


'Tis  thus  the  weak  frame  endures  not 
The  joys  .  .  . 


The  restoration  of  the  word  then  makes  line  i 
strike  the  right  metrical  note;  A  moment  in  line  5 
is  an  improvement  on  One  moment;  the  substitu- 
tion of  price  for  the  insignificant  reading  first  in 
line  12  is  of  high  value  to  the  sense  and  sound;  the 
abolition  of  the  lady's  "crushing"  lips  by  the  read- 
ing consumed  for  crushed  in  line  17,  and  still  more 
notably  the  elimination  of  the  taste  of  pickles  by 
reading,  with  the  manuscript,  burning  dew  for 
briny  dew  in  line  20,  are  sufficient  to  repay  one  for 
a  day  or  two  of  hard  work  for  the  eyes.  Over  and 
above  these  textual  emendations  is  the  settlement 
of  the  position  and  wording  of  the  last  couplet. 
Shelley  did  not  write  the  separate  sentence  which 
is  no  sentence— 

Methinks  too  little  cost 

For  a  moment  so  found,  so  lost ! 

But  he  did  show  how  the  sense  of  the  extra  couplet 
was  to  be  articulated  to  that  of  the  rest  of  the  stanza. 
The  drafting  of  this  poem  is  among  the  most 
illuminating  turmoils  that  I  have  found  in  these 
Note  Books.  The  poet,  aged  29,  seems  to  have 
rashly  kissed  the  lady  "right  on  the  mouth"  and  to 
have  found  himself  in  a  perfect  froth  of  passion,— 
almost,  one  would  say  with  the  immortal  landlady 
of  another  poet,  "a-fomentin'  at  the  mouth."    In 

Ci393 


this  there  is  nothing  wonderful,  whether  the  lady 
was  "our  beloved  Jane"— the  work  is  in  her  period 
—or  some  one  else.  What  is  wonderful  is  the  im- 
petuosity with  which  his  passion  resolves  itself  into 
music  and  imagery,  and  not  less  so  the  unerring 
delicacy  with  which  line  after  line  is  condemned 
as  he  goes  on.  In  the  first  of  the  eight  manuscript 
pages  there  is  little  sign  of  what  the  metre  is  to  be  :— 

Twas  the  lightning  that  j  ,    ,    ,      > 

The  snow  flake  that  fell 
The  blood  cup 

In  poi 
Give  me 
That  moment  was  perish. 

The  words  As  with  and  The  life  seem  to  be  faintly 
discernible  under  The  snowflake  and  The  blood 
cup.  Only  a  few  words  besides  faded  are  crossed 
through;  but  the  whole  are  obviously  abandoned, 
leaving  us  in  possession  of  the  interesting  inference 
that  Shelley  was  familiar  with  the  traditional 
method  of  some  of  the  northern  races  of  mingling 
blood  in  a  cup  as  a  sacrament  for  the  oath  of  foster- 
brothers.  The  second  page  starts  with  two  lines  of 
cancelled  words  A  poison  and  All  life,  followed  by 

O  poison  if  when  I  am  dead 

/■      for  both  -\ 
One  moment  •?      of  life      v  did  borrow 
(has  ) 

D4o3 


-r,  ■  ■  ,    c  else  would         ) 

I  he  joys  which  \  ,  _„  J 

(were  lent  to  fill) 

The  .  .  .  void 

A  life  we  can  ill 

But  would  ill 

A  long  life  exhausted  ill 

But  the  present  J  ,  l  to  b 

(seemed  ) 


orrow 


(pure 

Light  from  so   ( r  .      >  a  star  I". 
If  air 

i  fixed 


In  the  second  of  these  fragmentary  lines,  he  can- 
celled of  life  and  has,  in  the  third  else  would,  in 
the  fifth  life  we  can  ill,  in  the  seventh  long  and  the 
ed  in  exhausted,  in  the  eighth  seemed,  and  in  the 
ninth  sweet  and  fixed.  Three  or  four  more  obscure 
short  lines  show  insignificant  words  uncancelled, 
mixed  with  the  cancelled  words 

That  in  Heaven 

It  is  dead,  as  meteors  [are]. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  page  that  was  meant  to  be 
woven  into  the  song  at  last.  The  third  page  yields 
for  final  result  stanza  II  as  given  above;  but  before 
these  five  lines  there  are  two  false  starts,  both  struck 
out,  One  moment  whose,  and  One  moment.  In 
line  2  that  is  distinctly  cancelled  for  it;  And  is 

C«40 


struck  out  as  a  false  start  for  line  3  and  Like  simi- 
larly for  line  4.    Line  5  was  written  thus— 

Which  the  dark  clouds  hide- 
but  clouds  was  struck  out  and  shadows  substituted. 
At  the  end  of  this  third  page  is  a  fresh  attempt  to 
do  something  with  the  borrowing  imagery,  thus— 

The  past  was  all  str[ewn  with]  sorrow 

The  future  was  far  more  dark 
But  the  present  refused 

the  letters  I  take  to  make  strewn  with  being  mostly 
covered  by  a  heavy  blot  and  the  letters  I  read  as 
refused  struck  out  in  such  a  way  as  to  leave  a  doubt 
whether  they  did  not  form  seemed  as  in  the  cognate 
passage  on  the  second  page.  The  readings  darker 
still  and  darker  far  were  tried  for  describing  the 
future  and  rejected.  The  fourth  page  of  the  manu- 
script starts  with  the  following  trial  openings,  all 
crossed  through,  the  first  in  a  more  thorough  and 
deliberate  manner  than  the  rest:— 

O  fill  high  the  cup  with  ruin 

Mix  delusion  &  madness  therein 
Delusion  madness  &  ruin 

And  memory 
The  delusion  of  unknown  pleasure 
That  moment  was  mingled 

With  delusion  &  madness  too  sweet  [ ; 

D42  3 


and  then  we  get  stanza  3  as  above,  all  but  the  last 
line.    For  line  3  there  is  a  cancelled  reading — 

In  the  cup  brief  passion  was  [  .  .  . 

altered  to  In  one  cup  before  the  insertion  of  words 
completing  the  line  in  the  text.  On  the  next  page 
of  the  manuscript,  the  fifth,  we  get  first  the  line 

Too  sweet  to  return  again— 

return  being  altered  to  be  mine.  The  rest  of  the 
page  is  occupied  by  attempts  to  make  two  more 
stanzas:  the  first  is  very  incomplete;  but  the  final 
outcome  of  it  as  far  as  it  goes  is— after  a  cancelled 
initial  For — 

The  peace  that  I  knew  not  before 
The  peace  that  I  mist  for  ever 
The  peace  that  I  pa[rt]ake  not 
Methinks  is  little  for  ever. 

Among  rejected  readings  of  these  lines  are 

The  peace  that  I  now  have  lost 
The  peace  that  was  lost  for  ever 

The  sense  of  these  unfinished  and  obscurely  written 
lines  is  of  course  swallowed  up  in  the  fourth  stanza; 
and  the  same  is  true  of  the  five  lines  addressed 
directly  to  the  lady's  lips,  discoverable  with  diffi- 
culty in  the  lower  half  of  the  page : 

Sweet  lips  I  forswear  your  sweetness 
The  sweetness  not  given  to  me 

CH3  3 


The  kisses  of  mortal  fears 
Would  hallow  mine  to  thee 
What  I  am  will  I  seem  to  be. 

Before  attaining  this  imperfect  result  Shelley  had 
tried  successively 

Sweet  lips  when  desire 

The  sweetness  that  cost  ye  pain 

The  sweetness  I  stole 

But  after  the  kisses  of  fears 

Would  hallow  their  touch  to  me 

What  I  am  should  be  seen  to  be  [ ; 

and  the  words  death  life,  set  between  the  two  lines 
last  quoted,  without  obvious  connexion. 

There  is  no  general  cancellation  of  all  this;  but 
that  Shelley  had  gone  over  it  before  absorbing  the 
general  drift  into  his  triumphantly  fine  fourth 
stanza  is  clear  from  his  having  specially  crossed  out 
the  three  phrases  ending  with  me  and  thee,  wherein 
the  sense  bade  fair  to  be  sacrificed  in  the  interests 
of  rhyme.  I  must  admit  that  I  am  not  certain  of 
the  word  hallow  or  the  Would  before  it,  which 
might  possibly  be  Should.  The  sixth  and  seventh 
pages  of  the  manuscript  are  devoted  to  the  fourth 
stanza,  in  which  I  have  adopted  the  later  of  two 
words— heart  and  soul— both  cancelled  but  with 
no  word  substituted'.  I  think  that  in  line  i  he 
meant  to  use  soul,  not  heart,  wanting  heart  in  line  4. 
Page  6  opens  with 

Sweet  lips,  had  my  hear[t]  hidden  [— 

D44J" 


had  my  hear  being  cancelled  in  favour  of  could 
my  heart  have:  my  heart  is  then  lightly  crossed 
through;  above  the  line  are  written  very  faintly 
what  I  take  to  be  two  alternative  readings  /  not  and 
soul  not]  and  I  do  not  doubt  that  the  final  reading 
was  meant  to  be  as  above,  the  its  of  line  2  being  left 
unmolested.  The  sense  is  enormously  improved. 
There  is  a  false  start,  How,  for  line  2,  followed  by 
That  thy  pleasure,  altered  to  That  your  dew  was 
poison  to,  and  then  by 

That  \  "         ,       \ its  life  was  consumed  by  you 
I  your  dew  ) 

the  bracketed  words  being  struck  out,  and  the 
words  burning  dew  are  followed  by  a  dash— sig- 
nificant as  a  special  leader  to  the  next  page,  in  the 
top  margin  of  which  is  the  word  that,  needed  to 
connect  with  the  rest  of  the  stanza  the  couplet 
which  was  written  thus— 

Methinks  is  little  cost 

For  a  moment  so  found,  so  lost ! 


The  word  is  is  cancelled  in  favour  of  were  too.  At 
the  foot  of  the  page  are  four  false  starts  for  some- 
thing or  other— all  cancelled— 

All  joys 
For  think 
No:  think  that 
We  all  [  .  .  . 


But  the  long  rule  under  the  last  line  is  meant  to  in- 
dicate the  close  of  the  poem.  Supposing  Shelley  to 
have  reopened  his  book  and  reviewed  the  wilder- 
ness of  abandoned  and  unabandoned  lines,  rejected 
and  accepted  words,  he  would  have  found  that  the 
chief  need  of  the  poem  as  left  to  be  discovered  in 
the  seven  pages  of  scrawl  was  an  opening  stanza; 
and  it  is  with  the  opening  stanza  that  the  eighth 
page  of  the  manuscript  is  chiefly  concerned.  By 
the  way  a  little  piece  of  personal  moralizing  seems 
to  have  occurred  to  him,  and  he  wrote  down  at  the 
top  of  the  page 

The  weak  frame— 

which  he  immediately  cancelled  and  wrote 

Tis  thus  the  weak  frame  endures  not 
The  joys  [  .  .  . 

Then,  doubtless  remembering  how  he  detested 
"didactic  poetry,"  and  with  a  delicate  intuition  or 
suspicion  that  the  words  the  joys  might  be  unac- 
ceptable to  the  lady,  he  began  with 

We  parted 

and  at  once  cancelled  that,  and  without  more  ado 
wrote 

We  meet  not  as  then  we  parted— 

but  here  again  comes  debate  and  rejection  of  a 
qualifying  phrase— 

CI463 


Till  the  time  when 
I  We  shall  [  .  .  . 

He  had  considered  how  those  two  lines  were  to 
end,  for  after  changing  time  to  hour,  he  wrote 
words  at  the  other  side  of  the  page,  leaving  spaces 
to  be  filled.  What  the  words  were  I  cannot  say,  for 
he  succeeded  in  blotting  them  thoroughly,  and  shut 
the  book  before  they  were  dry.  Strictly  speaking, 
the  book  probably  shut  itself ;  it  still  opens  obstrep- 
erously and  constantly  shuts  when  you  want  it  to 
keep  open.  However,  he  opened  it  again  and  got 
it  to  stay  open  while  he  not  only  cancelled  those 
two  unfinished  lines  and  wrote  faintly  and  ob- 
scurely between  them 

We  feel  more  than  all  may  see  [ ; 

but  further  he  rounded  the  poem  by  writing  lines  3, 
4  and  5.  This  he  did  without  further  adventure 
than  a  false  start  for  5  (For  the  or  To  the,  I  think) 
and  the  use  of  so  much  ink  about  its  inscription 
and  obliteration  as  to  obscure  the  first  word  of 
the  fifth  line  as  adopted  and  leave  a  possibility  of 
dispute  between  the  scholiasts  of  the  twentieth,  or, 
"by  'r  lady,"  twenty-first  century  on  the  grave  ques- 
tion whether  Garnett  was  right  in  reading  One  or 
1  in  reading  A . 


CI473 


APPENDIX-UNA  FAVOLA 


SHELLEY'S  UNFINISHED 

COMPOSITION  WRITTEN  IN  ITALIAN  PROSE 

AND  KNOWN  AS 

UNA  FAVOLA 

For  the  reasons  given  at  the  end  of  the  First 
Part  of  this  work,  the  piece  of  Italian  poetic  prose 
known  as  Una  Favola  has  been  reserved  for  the 
conclusion  of  the  whole  book.  Shelley's  draft  of 
this  piece  in  Note  Book  I  is  extremely  inaccurate 
and  very  full  of  revisions;  but  it  has  a  remarkable 
and  wholly  characteristic  charm,  which  can  be 
most  enjoyably  communicated  through  the  late  Dr. 
Garnett's  delightful  English  rendering,  published 
in  1862  in  Relics  of  Shelley.  That  version  is  as 
follows:— 

A  FABLE. 

There  was  a  youth  who  travelled  through  distant 
lands,  seeking  throughout  the  world  a  lady  of 
whom  he  was  enamoured.  And  who  this  lady  was, 
and  how  this  youth  became  enamoured  of  her,  and 
how  and  why  the  great  love  he  bore  her  forsook 
him,  are  things  worthy  to  be  known  by  every  gentle 
heart. 

At  the  dawn  of  the  fifteenth  spring  of  his  life,  a 

C15O 


certain  one  calling  himself  Love  awoke  him,  say- 
ing that  one  whom  he  had  ofttimes  beheld  in  his 
dreams  abode  awaiting  him.  This  Love  was  ac- 
companied by  a  great  troop  of  female  forms,  all 
veiled  in  white,  and  crowned  with  laurel,  ivy,  and 
myrtle,  garlanded  and  interwreathed  with  violets, 
roses,  and  lilies.  They  sang  with  such  sweetness 
that  perhaps  the  harmony  of  the  spheres,  to  which 
the  stars  dance,  is  not  so  sweet.  And  their  manners 
and  words  were  so  alluring,  that  the  youth  was  en- 
ticed, and,  arising  from  his  couch,  made  himself 
ready  to  do  all  the  pleasure  of  him  who  called  him- 
self Love;  at  whose  behest  he  followed  him  by 
lonely  ways  and  deserts  and  caverns,  until  the 
whole  troop  arrived  at  a  solitary  wood,  in  a  gloomy 
valley  between  two  most  lofty  mountains,  which 
valley  was  planted  in  the  manner  of  a  labyrinth, 
with  pines,  cypresses,  cedars,  and  yews,  whose  shad- 
ows begot  a  mixture  of  delight  and  sadness.  And 
in  this  wood  the  youth  for  a  whole  year  followed 
the  uncertain  footsteps  of  this  his  companion  and 
guide,  as  the  moon  follows  the  earth,  save  that 
there  was  no  change  in  him,  and  nourished  by  the 
fruit  of  a  certain  tree  which  grew  in  the  midst  of 
the  labyrinth — a  food  sweet  and  bitter  at  once, 
which  being  cold  as  ice  to  the  lips,  appeared  fire  in 
the  veins.  The  veiled  figures  were  continually 
around  him,  ministers  and  attendants  obedient  to 
his  least  gesture,  and  messengers  between  him  and 
Love,  when  Love  might  leave  him  for  a  little  on  his 
other  errands.  But  these  figures,  albeit  executing 
his  every  other  command  with  swiftness,  never 
would  unveil  themselves  to  him,  although  he  anx- 
iously besought  them;  one  only  excepted,  whose 
name  was  Life,  and  who  had  the  fame  of  a  potent 


inchantress.  She  was  tall  of  person  and  beautiful, 
cheerful  and  easy  in  her  manners,  and  richly 
adorned,  and,  as  it  seemed  from  her  ready  unveil- 
ing of  herself,  she  wished  well  to  this  youth.  But 
he  soon  perceived  that  she  was  more  false  than  any 
Siren,  for  by  her  counsel  Love  abandoned  him  in 
this  savage  place,  with  only  the  company  of  these 
shrouded  figures,  who,  by  their  obstinately  remain- 
ing veiled,  had  always  wrought  him  dread.  And 
none  can  expound  whether  these  figures  were  the 
spectres  of  his  own  dead  thoughts,  or  the  shadows 
of  the  living  thoughts  of  Love.  Then  Life,  haply 
ashamed  of  her  deceit,  concealed  herself  within  the 
cavern  of  a  certain  sister  of  hers  dwelling  there; 
and  Love,  sighing,  returned  to  his  third  heaven. 

Scarcely  had  Love  departed,  when  the  masked 
forms,  released  from  his  government,  unveiled 
themselves  before  the  astonished  youth.  And  for 
many  days  these  figures  danced  around  him  whith- 
ersoever he  went,  alternately  mocking  and  threat- 
ening him;  and  in  the  night  while  he  reposed  they 
defiled  in  long  and  slow  procession  before  his 
couch,  each  more  hideous  and  terrible  than  the 
other.  Their  horrible  aspect  and  loathsome  figure 
so  overcame  his  heart  with  sadness  that  the  fair 
heaven,  covered  with  that  shadow,  clothed  itself  in 
clouds  before  his  eyes;  and  he  wept  so  much  that 
the  herbs  upon  his  path,  fed  with  tears  instead  of 
dew,  became  pale  and  bowed  like  himself.  Weary 
at  length  of  this  suffering,  he  came  to  the  grot  of 
the  Sister  of  Life,  herself  also  an  enchantress,  and 
found  her  sitting  before  a  pale  fire  of  perfumed 
wood,  singing  laments  sweet  in  their  melancholy, 
and  weaving  a  white  shroud,  upon  which  his  name 
was  half  wrought,  with  the  obscure  and  imperfect 

CI53  3 


beginning  of  a  certain  other  name;  and  he  be- 
sought her  to  tell  him  her  own,  and  she  said,  with 
a  faint  but  sweet  voice,  "Death."  And  the  youth 
said,  "O  lovely  Death,  I  pray  thee  to  aid  me 
against  these  hateful  phantoms,  companions  of  thy 
sister,  which  cease  not  to  torment  me."  And  Death 
comforted  him,  and  took  his  hand  with  a  smile, 
and  kissed  his  brow  and  cheek,  so  that  every  vein 
thrilled  with  joy  and  fear,  and  made  him  abide 
with  her  in  a  chamber  of  her  cavern,  whither,  she 
said,  it  was  against  Destiny  that  the  wicked  com- 
panions of  Life  should  ever  come.  The  youth 
continually  conversing  with  Death,  and  she,  like- 
minded  to  a  sister,  caressing  him  and  showing  him 
every  courtesy  both  in  deed  and  word,  he  quickly 
became  enamoured  of  her,  and  Life  herself,  far  less 
any  of  her  troop,  seemed  fair  to  him  no  longer:  and 
his  passion  so  overcame  him,  that  upon  his  knees 
he  prayed  Death  to  love  him  as  he  loved  her,  and 
consent  to  do  his  pleasure.  But  Death  said,  'Au- 
dacious that  thou  art,  with  whose  desire  has  Death 
ever  complied?  If  thou  lovedst  me  not,  perchance 
I  might  love  thee— beloved  by  thee,  I  hate  thee  and 
I  fly  thee."  Thus  saying,  she  went  forth  from  the 
cavern,  and  her  dusky  and  aetherial  form  was  soon 
lost  amid  the  interwoven  boughs  of  the  forest. 

From  that  moment  the  youth  pursued  the  track 
of  Death ;  and  so  mighty  was  the  love  that  led  him, 
that  he  had  encircled  the  world  and  searched 
through  all  its  regions,  and  many  years  were  al- 
ready spent,  but  sorrows  rather  than  years  had 
blanched  his  locks  and  withered  the  flower  of  his 
beauty,  when  he  found  himself  upon  the  confines 
of  the  very  forest  from  which  his  wretched  wander- 
ings had  begun.    He  cast  himself  upon  the  grass 

CI543 


and  wept  for  many  hours,  so  blinded  by  his  tears 
that  for  much  time  he  did  not  perceive  that  not  all 
that  bathed  his  face  and  his  bosom  were  his  own, 
but  that  a  lady  bowed  behind  him  wept  for  pity  of 
his  weeping.  And  lifting  up  his  eyes  he  saw  her, 
and  it  seemed  to  him  never  to  have  beheld  so  glo- 
rious a  vision,  and  he  doubted  much  whether  she 
were  a  human  creature.  And  his  love  of  Death 
was  suddenly  changed  into  hate  and  suspicion,  for 
this  new  love  was  so  potent  that  it  overcame  every 
other  thought.  This  compassionate  lady  at  first 
loved  him  for  mere  pity;  but  love  grew  up  swiftly 
with  compassion,  and  she  loved  for  Love's  own 
sake,  no  one  beloved  by  her  having  need  of  pity  any 
more.  This  was  the  lady  in  whose  quest  Love  had 
led  the  youth  through  that  gloomy  labyrinth  of 
error  and  suffering,  haply  for  that  he  esteemed  him 
unworthy  of  so  much  glory,  and  perceived  him  too 
weak  to  support  such  exceeding  joy.  After  having 
somewhat  dried  their  tears,  the  twain  walked  to- 
gether in  that  same  forest,  until  Death  stood  before 
them,  and  said,  "Whilst,  O  youth,  thou  didst  love 
me,  I  hated  thee,  and  now  that  thou  hatest  me,  I 
love  thee,  and  wish  so  well  to  thee  and  thy  bride 
that  in  my  kingdom,  which  thou  mayest  call  Para- 
dise, I  have  set  apart  a  chosen  spot,  where  ye  may 
securely  fulfil  your  happy  loves."  And  the  lady, 
offended,  and  perchance  somewhat  jealous  by  rea- 
son of  the  past  love  of  her  spouse,  turned  her  back 
upon  Death,  saying  within  herself,  "What  would 
this  lover  of  my  husband  who  comes  here  to  trouble 
us?"  and  cried,  "Life!  Life!"  and  Life  came,  with 
a  gay  visage,  crowned  with  a  rainbow,  and  clad  in 
a  various  mantle  of  chameleon  skin;  and  Death 
went  away  weeping,  and  departing  said  with  a 


sweet  voice,  "Ye  mistrust  me,  but  I  forgive  ye,  and 
await  ye  where  ye  needs  must  come,  for  I  dwell 
with  Love  and  Eternity,  with  whom  the  souls  whose 
love  is  everlasting  must  hold  communion;  then  will 
ye  perceive  whether  I  have  deserved  your  distrust. 
Meanwhile  I  commend  ye  to  Life;  and,  sister  mine, 
I  beseech  thee,  by  the  love  of  that  Death  with 
whom  thou  wert  twin  born,  not  to  employ  thy  cus- 
tomary arts  against  these  lovers,  but  content  thee 
with  the  tribute  thou  hast  already  received  of  sighs 
and  tears,  which  are  thy  wealth."  The  youth, 
mindful  of  how  great  evil  she  had  wrought  him  in 
that  wood,  mistrusted  Life ;  but  the  lady,  although 
she  doubted,  yet  being  jealous  of  Death,  .  .  . 

[End  of  Garnett's  Translation.] 


D563 


In  the  following  pages  Shelley's  draft  is  set  out 
opposite  the  very  much  revised  Italian  of  the 
Relics  of  Shelley;  and,  for  convenient  comparison, 
the  two  versions  are  printed  facing  each  other  as 
nearly  page  for  page  as  practicable.  Shelley's  draft 
begins  at  page  I  *  35  v.,  extends  unbroken  to  the 
end  of  page  I  *  41  r.,  and  is  concluded  on  pages 
I  *  3  v.  to  7  v.  It  is  of  course  given  in  accordance 
with  what  I  take  to  be  the  final  outcome  or  inten- 
tion at  the  time  of  writing.  Words  and  passages 
which  he  cancelled  or  rejected  at  that  time  are 
shown  at  the  foot  of  each  page  of  this  his  un- 
doubted work;  their  position  in  the  draft  being 
indicated  by  means  of  Arabic  numerals  enclosed 
within  parentheses. 


Ci573 


SHELLEY'S  DRAFT  IN  NOTE  BOOK  I 

Cera  un  certo  giovane  d'un  paese  lontano,  chi 
viaggiava  pel  mondo  di  trovar  una  donna  ( i )  della 
quale  esso  fu  innamorato  dai  verdi  anni.— (2)  E 
chi  fu  questa  donna,  e  (3)  come  questo  giovane 
primo  s'innamoro  di  lei,  e  perche  gli  cessa  l'amore 
tan  to  forte  che  aveva  sono  cose  degne  d'essere  co- 
nosciute  da  ogni  gentil  cuore.— 

Al  spuntare  della  decima  quinta  (4)  primavera 
della  vita  sua  (5)  uno  (6)  chiamandosi  Amore,  ap- 
parivo  a  questo  giovane,  seguitato  d'una  grande 
schiera  de  (7)  persone  tutte  velati  in  veli  bianchi,  e 
coronati  (8)  di  mirto  e  di  lauro  (9)  ed'  ellera  in- 
trecciati  di  viole  rose  e  fiordilisi — E  cantanavo 
[sic  for  cantavano]  (10)  si  dolcemente  che,  (11) 
l'armonia  delle  sfere,  al  quale  le  stelle  ballano, 
(12)  fu  meno  soave. — E  le  loro  maniere  (13) 
erano  cose  (14)  gentile  che  questo  giovane  (15) 
era  allettato  fa  [sic  for  a]  fare  il  volere  di  quello 
chi  si  chiamava  Amore  e  lo  seguivata  [sic  for  se- 
guitava]  —  per  solinghe  vie,  (16)  e  selve  e  caverni 
finche  (17)  furono  tutti  arrivati  ad  (18)  un  giar- 
dino  fra  due  altissime  montagne  che  fu  piantato 
(19)  in  guisa  di  laberinto  di  alberi,  pini  cipressi, 

(i)chemo  (2)  perche  la  cessa  ma  primamente  de  (3)  perche 
(4)  della  I5ta  anno  /  quind  (5)  l'amore  (6)  chi  se 

(7)  gente  (8)  di  mirto  e  lauro  /  ghirlande  di  (9)  e  di  mirto 
(10)  diresti  (11)  il  cuore  suo  batteva  violentamente  /  chi  non 
avrebbe  udito  e  un  visione  fu  ociso  /  ch  (12)  forse  (13)  fu- 
rono (14)  dilettevole  (15)  fu  (16)  montane  (17)  ar- 
riva  (18)  una  spelonca  per  un  solitario  chiuso  in  torno  di  ci  sassi 
(19)  una  specie 

D583 


UNA  FAVOLA1  AS  GIVEN  IN  "RELICS  OF  SHELLEY" 

Cera  un  giovane  il  quale  viaggiava  per  paesi 
lontani,  cercando  per  il  mondo  una  donna,  della 
quale  esso  fu  innamorato.  E  chi  fu  quella  donna, 
e  come  questo  giovane  s'innamoro  di  lei,  e  come  e 
perche  gli  cesso  l'amore  tanto  forte  che  aveva,  sono 
cose  degne  d'essere  conosciute  da  ogni  gentil  cuore. 

Al  spuntare  della  decima  quinta  primavera  della 
sua  vita,  uno  chiamandosi  Amore  gli  destava,  di- 
cendo  che  una  chi  egli  aveva  molte  volte  veduto  nei 
sogni  gli  stava  aspettando.  Quello  fu  accompa- 
gnato  d'una  schiera  immensa  di  persone,  tutte 
velate  in  bianchi  veli,  e  coronate  di  lauro,  ellera  e 
mirto  inghirlandite  ed  intrecciate  di  viole,  rose,  e 
fiordilisi.  Cantavano  si  dolcemente  che  forse  l'ar- 
monia  delle  sfere  alia  quale  le  stelle  ballano,  e 
meno  soave.  E  le  maniere  e  le  parole  loro  erano 
cosi  lusinghevoli,  che  il  giovane  fu  allettato,  e  le- 
vandosi  del  letto,  si  fece  pronto  di  fare  tutto  il 
volere  di  quello  che  si  chiamava  Amore,  al  di  cui 
cenno  lo  seguitava  per  solinghe  vie  ed  eremi  e  ca- 
verne,  fino  che  tutta  la  schiera  arrivo  ad  un  bosco 
solitario  in  una  cupa  valle  per  due  altissime  raon- 
tagne,  il  quale  fu  piantato  a  guisa  di  laberinto  di 
pini,  cipressi,  cedari  e  tassi,  le  ombre  dei  quali 

1  Of  this  title,  obviously  appropriate  as  it  is,  there  is  no  trace 
in  the  Note  Boole. 

CI593 


cedari  e  tassi,  le  (20)  ombre  dei  quali  destavano 
(21)  un  misto  di  piacere  e  di  orrore—  E  qui  per 
un  anno  intero  seguitava  i  passi  (22)  di  questo 
compagno  e  duce  suo  come  la  luna  segui  la  terra. 
E  fu  nutrito  d'un  erbe  amara  e  dolce  insieme  la 
frutta  d'un  certo  albero  che  fu  nel  mezzo  del  labe- 
rinto,  e  essendo  freddo  come  ghiaccio  sulle  labre, 
pareva  foco  nelle  vene.—  E  queste  forme  velate 
svolazzavano  intorno  di  lui,  e  furono  i  suoi  mi- 
nistri,  e  le  cor[r]ieri  fra  lui  ed  Amore  passare 
quello  e  quando  ma  non  mai  (23)  volevano  mai 
svelarsi,  passe  diversi  quantunque  (24)  le  pre- 
ghasse  fo  (25)  ;  eccetuato  una  (26)  che  si  chia- 
mava  Vita,  (27)  ed  aveva  reputazione  di  in- 
cantratrice  [_sic~\.  Era  (28)  grande  di  persona  e 
bella,  allegra,  (29)  e  sciolta,  ornata  riccamente  e 
siccome  pareva  (30)  dal  suo  svelarsi  voleva  bene  a 
questo  giovane;  ma  ben  presto  fu  (31)  reconosciu- 
tate  d'essere  piu  finta  (32)  che  alcuna  Sirena, 
poiche  per  consiglio  suo,  Amore  gli  abbandono  in 
questo  (33)  selvaggio  louga  [sic  for  luogo],  e  (34) 
tutti  gli  due  gli  lasciavano  solo  con  queste  velate 
forme;  e  se  quelle  furono  (35)  le  sprettri  [sic  for 
spettri]  (36)  dei  suoi  (37)  morti  pensieri  o  (38) 

(20)  di  (21)  al'  (22)  del  amore  (23)  se  (24) 
molte  volte  (25)  molto  (26)  Passegiavano  (27)  la  questa 
schiera  c'era  una,  che  gagliarda         (28)  bella         (29)  di  maniere 

(30)  amava  questo  giovane  /  volera  tanto  bene  a  questo  giovane 

(31)  conos  (32)  di  (33)  solitario  bosco  /  loco  (34)  gli 
lascia  solo  /  con  nessuno  (35)  i  suoi  (36)  ombre  (37) 
proprie         (38)  di  quelli 


Ci6o] 


destavano  un  misto  di  diletto  e  malinconia.  Ed  in 
questo  bosco  il  giovane  seguitava  per  un  anno  in- 
tero  i  passi  incerti  di  questo  compagno  e  duce  suo, 
come  la  luna  segue  la  terra;  non  pero  tramutandosi 
come  essa.  E  fu  egli  nutrito  delle  f rutta  d'un  certo 
albero  che  crebbe  nel  mezzo  del  laberinto,  un  cibo 
insieme  dolce  ed  amaro,  il  quale  essendo  freddo 
come  ghiaccio  sulle  labbre,  pareva  fuoco  nelle 
vene.  Le  forme  velate  sempre  gli  furono  intorno, 
erano  servi  e  ministri  ubbedienti  al  menomo  cenno, 
e  corrieri  per  lui  ed  Amore  quando  per  affari  suoi 
l'Amore  un  poco  lo  lascierebbe.  Ma  queste  forme, 
eseguendo  ogni  altra  ordine  sua  prestamente,  mai 
non  vollero  svelarsi  a  lui  quantunque  le  pregasse 
sollecitamente;  eccettuato  una,  che  aveva  nome  la 
Vita,  ed  aveva  riputazione  di  incantatrice  gagli- 
arda.  Era  essa  grande  di  persona  e  bella,  allegra  e 
sciolta,  ed  ornata  riccamente,  e,  siccome  pareva  dal 
suo  pronto  svelarsi,  voleva  bene  a  questo  giovane. 
Ma  ben  presto  la  riconobbe  d'essere  piu  finta  che 
alcuna  Sirena,  poiche  per  consiglio  suo,  Amore  gli 
lascio  in  questo  selvaggio  luogo,  colla  sola  compa- 
gnia  di  queste  velate,  le  quali  per  il  loro  ostinato 
celarsi  sempre  gli  avevano  fatte  qualche  paura.  E, 
se  quelle  forme  erano  i  spettri  dei  suoi  proprii 
morti  pensieri,  owero  le  ombre  dei  vivi  pensieri 


C16O 


le  ombre  dei  vivi  del  Amore  nessuno  puo  schiarire. 
(39)  La  Vita,  in  quel  punto  si  celava  (40)  nella 
interiore  parte  d'una  spelonca  d'una  sua  sorella 
abitando  (41)  cola,  ed  Amore  se  ne  torno  sospi- 
rando  alia  (42)  sua  terza  sfera. 

Appena  fu  partito  Amore  quando  le  forme  so- 
lute della  sua  legge,  tutte  insieme  si  svelarono  e  si 
presentarono  (43)  davanti  al  attonito  giovane.  II 
loro  orribile  aspetto  e  trista  figura  gli  ingombrava 
il  cuore  di  malinconia,  e  per  (44)  molti  giorni 
pianse  tante,  che  le  erbe  del  suo  cammimo  [sic  for 
cammino\  pasciate  di  lagrime  in  vece  di  rugiada 
divantavano  come  lui  pallide  e  chinate.  Le  sopra- 
dette  forme  ballavano  intorno  di  lui  (45)  il  giorno 
dovunque  andasse,  e  ora  mottegiavandolo,  ed  or 
tremendi  e  gridavano  (46)  minacciandolo,  in  (47) 
accestia  e  quando  riposavava,  (48)  filavano  in 
(49)  lenta  e  lunga  processione  davanti  (50)  dal 
suo  letto,  ognuna  piu  schifosa  e  terrbile  che  l'altra 
—  (51)  Alfine  stanco  di  questo  (52)  malmenare 
andava  alia  caverna  della  Sorella  della  Vita,  incan- 
tatrice  anch'  ella,  e  la  trovo  (53)  seduta  davanti  un 
lento  fuoco  di  cipresso  cantando  soave[me]nte  do- 
lorosi  tessendo  una  bianca  mortaia  ornata  di  molti 
strani  geroglifici,  e  la  prego  di  dirlo  suo  nome  ed 
ella  disse  col  voce  (54)  fiocca  ma  dolce  "La  Mor- 
te."—    Ed  il  giovane  (55)  disse— O  bella  Morte 

(39)  II  momento  che  Vita  ed  Amore  (40)  sotto  una  la 

(41)   qu          (42)   terza  sua          (43)   all'  (44)   giorni  molti 

(45)   il  notte  e             (46)   minacciavolmente  (47)    terribili 

(48)    facevano   prec           (49)    dubii         (50)  di   lui   ognuna  piu 

brutta  e  tremenda  (51)  finale  /  Al  fino  (52)  travaglia 
(53)  sedando  (54)  dolce  ma  (55)  Suo  viso  fu  tale,  che 
il  mondo 


CI62  3 


dell'  Amore,  nessuno  pud  schiarire.  La  Vita,  ver- 
gognandosi  forse  della  sua  fraude,  si  celo  allora 
dentro  alia  spelonca  d'una  sua  sorella  abitando 
cola;  ed  Amore  se  ne  torno,  sospirando,  alia  sua 
terza  sfera. 

Appena  fu  partito  Amore,  quando  le  mascherate 
forme,  solute  della  sua  legge,  si  svelarono  davanti 
all'  attonito  giovane.  E  per  molti  giorni  le  sopra- 
dette  figure  ballavano  intorno  di  lui  dovunque  an- 
dasse — ora  motteggiando  ed  ora  minacciandolo,  e 
la  notte  quando  riposava  sfilavano  in  lunga  e  lenta 
processione  davanti  al  suo  letto,  ognuna  piu  schi- 
fosa  e  terribile  che  l'altra.  II  loro  orribile  aspetto 
e  ria  figura  gli  ingombrava  tanto  il  cuore  di  tris- 
tezza,  che  il  bel  cielo,  coperto  di  quella  ombra,  si 
vesti  di  nuvoloso  tutto  agli  occhi  suoi ;  e  tanto 
pianse,  che  le  erbe  del  suo  cammino  pasciate  di  la- 
grime  in  vece  di  rugiada,  diventarono  come  lui, 
pallide  e  chinate.  Stanco  alfine  di  questo  soffrire, 
veniva  alia  grotta  della  Sorella  della  Vita,  incan- 
tatrice  anch'ella  e  la  trovo  seduta  davanti  un 
pallido  fuoco  di  odorose  legna,  cantando  lai  soave- 
mente  dolorosi,  e  tessendo  una  bianca  mortaia, 
sopra  la  quale  suo  nome  era  a  mezzo  intessato,  con 
qualche  altro  nome  oscuro  ed  imperfetto;  ed  egli 
la  prego  di  dirlo  suo  nome,  ed  ella  disse  con  voce 
fiocca  ma  dolce— "La  Morte;"  ed  il  giovane  disse 
— "O  bella  Morte,  ti  prego  di  aiutarmi  contre  di 


Ci63  3 


ti  prego  di  ajutar  mi  (56)  contro  di  queste  noiose 
imagini  compagni  della  tua  Sorella  che  mi  tormen- 
tono  tuttavia—  E  la  Morte  rideva  (57)  soava- 
mente,  e  gli  bacio  la  fronte,  sicche  tremava  ogni 
vena  di  gioia  e  paura  e  le  fece  stare  presso  di  lei  in 
una  stanza  della  sua  Spelonca,  donde  sperava  che 
piu  mai  non  uscir[e]bbe  f[u]ori  Perche  si  inma- 
moro  [sic~]  si  fortemente  della  Morte,  che  La  Vita, 
stessa  non  che  alcuna  della  sua  schiera,  (58)  piu 
non  gli  pareva  bella.  E  tanto  lo  vinse  la  passione, 
sul  ginocchio  prego  la  Morte  di  amarlo  (59)  come 
egli  amava  lei  e  fare  suo  piacere.  E  la  Morte  disse 
—  Ardito  che  tu  sei!  .  .  ai  desiri  del  quale  mai 
ha  la  Morte  corrisposta?  Si  [sic  for  Se~\  tu  non  mi 
amasti  forse  ti  amerei,  ma  amondomi  [sic  for 
amandomi\  io  ti  odio  e  fuggo — .  Cosi  dicendo 
usci  della  spelonca,  e  (60)  la  sua  (61)  oscura  e  ete- 
rea  figura  fu  presto  (62)  persa  fra  gli  intrecciati 
rami  della  selva. 

(63)  Di  loro  il  Giovane  seguitava  le  orme  della 
Morte,  (64)  per  il  Mondo— (65)  e  si  forte  fu  l'a- 
more  che  gli  (66)  menava,  che  (67)  aveva  cercato 
La  per  tutto  l'orbe,  e  molti  anni  erano  gia  (68) 
spenti  ed  appassito  il  fiore  della  forma,  quando  si 

(56)  e  difedarmi  (57)  dolce  (58)  non  (59)  come 
egli  l'amava. — E  la  Morte  disse — Ardito  che  tu  sei  .  .  ai  voti 
di  cui  (60)  fuggeva  (61)  aeria  (62)  perduta  (63)  II 
Giovane  cercava  la  Morte         (64)  tutto  quel         (65)  ben  furono 

conosciuti  \  .  >  vestigii       (66)  as       (67)  molti  anni       (68) 

passati,  ed  i  capelli  suoi  avevano  devenuti  bianci  piu  per  dolor 
ma  /  ed  il  dolor  piu  che  gli  anni  avevano  imbiancita  la  chioma  e 
seccati  /  spenti  /  il  la  ed  /  e  seccata  il  vigore  della  membra  quando 


Cl643 


queste  noiose  immagini,  compagni  della  tua  so- 
rella,  le  quali  mi  tormentano  tutta-via."  E  la 
Morte  le  rassicuro,  gli  prese  la  mano,  ridendo, 
e  gli  bacio  la  fronte  e  le  guancie,  sicche  tre- 
mava  ogni  vena  di  gioia  e  di  paura;  e  gli  fece 
stare  presso  di  se,  in  una  camera  della  sua  grotta, 
dove,  disse,  fu  contro  al  destino  che  le  rie  forme, 
compagne  della  Vita,  venissero.  II  giovane  con- 
tinuamente  praticandosi  colla  Morte,  ed  ella,  coll' 
animo  di  sorella,  carezzandolo  e  facendo  ogni  cor- 
tesia  di  atto  e  di  parola,  ben  presto  s'innamoro  di 
lei;  e  la  Vita  stessa,  non  che  alcuna  della  sua 
schiera,  non  gli  pareva  bella.  E  tanto  lo  vinse  la 
passione,  che  sul  ginocchio  prego  la  Morte  di 
amarlo  come  egli  amava  lei,  e  di  voler  fare  il  suo 
piacere.  Ma  la  Morte  disse,  "Ardito  che  tu  siei,  al 
desir  del  quale  mai  ha  la  Morte  corrisposta?  Si  tu 
non  mi  amasti,  io  forse  ti  amerei,  amandomi  io  ti 
odio,  e  fuggo."  Cosi  dicendo,  usci  della  spelonca, 
e  la  sua  oscura  ed  eterea  figura  fu  presto  persa  fra 
gli  intrecciati  rami  della  selva. 

Da  quel  punto  il  giovane  seguiva  le  orme  della 
Morte,  e  si  forte  fu  l'amore  chi  lo  menava,  che 
aveva  circuito  l'orbe,  ed  indagato  ogni  sua  regione ; 
e  molti  anni  erano  gia  spenti,  ma  le  soffranze  piu 
che  gli  anni  avevano  imbiancita  la  chioma  ed  ap- 
passito  il  fiore  della  forma,  quando  si  trovo  sui  con- 


ci65n 


trovo  (69)  sui  confini  della  stessa  selva,  dalle  quale 
(70)  aveva  cominciato  il  suo  misero  errare;  e  si 
gittava  sull  erba  lagrimando,  e  le  sue  lagrime  l'ac- 
cecava  tanto,  che  per  molto  tempo  non  se  n'awi- 
dea,  che  tutte  quelle  che  bagnavano  il  viso  e  (71) 
il  petto  non  furono  sue  proprie, — ma  che  una 
donna  pianse  con  lui,  per  pieta  del  suo  pianto.  E 
levando  gli  occhi,  la  vidde  eil'  (72)  suo  amore  per 
la  Morte  (73)  fu  cangiato  subito  in  odio  e  sospetto, 
perche  questo  nuovo  amore  fu  si  forte,  che  vinse 
(74)  °gni  altro  (75)  E  quella  donna,  (76)  primo 
l'amava  per  pieta  sola,  (77)  ma  tosto  col  compas- 
sione  crebbe  l'amore  stesso;  non  avendo  piu  uopo 
di  (78)  essere  compatito  alcuno  amato  da  lei.  (79) 
Fu  questa  la  donna  per  la  quale  amore  (80)  me- 
nava  il  giovane  in  quel  (81)  oscuro  laberinto,  e 
gli  fece  tanto  soffrire;  (82)  e  che  lo  giudicava  an- 
cora  indegno  di  tanta  gloria,  o  che  lo  vidde  troppo 
debole  per  tolerare(83)  siimmensagioia— (84).  E 

(69)   sulla  falda  (70)  comin  (71)  le  mane  (72) 

amore  suo  p  (73)  spariva  sorti  perche  amava  /  sfuggio  / 
lasciavo  voto  il  cuore,  e  torno  del  cuore  e  l'imagine  di  questa 
angelica  donna  ci  sedersi,  e  fu  cacciato  in  men  travolto  (74) 
non  (75)  pensiere — e  la  (76)  fa  tanta  fu,  la  sua  divina 
compassione,  (77)  e  (78)  compassione  (79)  Questa 

era  la  quella  per  la  quale  Amore  non  giudicandolo  ancora  indegno 
scese  del  cielo  e  la  fece  tanto  soffriere  in  questa  (80)   lo 

(81)  laberinto  oscuro  (82)  g  (83)  gi  (84)  II  giovane 
e  questa  /  Non  sono  parole  che  possono  /  capace  de  /  rappresen- 

tare  questa  donna  i  soli  pensieri  dell'  <       .       >    gentile  possone 

figurarla 


C  166:1 


fini  della  stessa  selva  della  quale  aveva  cominciato 
il  suo  misero  errare.  E  si  gitto  sull'erbe,  e  per 
molte  ore  pianse;  e  le  lagrime  l'accecavano  tanto, 
che  per  molto  tempo  non  se  n'awidde,  che  tutte 
quelle  che  bagnavano  il  viso  e  il  petto,  non  furono 
sue  proprie ;  ma  che  una  donna  chinata  dietro  di  lui 
pianse  per  pieta  del  suo  pianto.  E  levando  gli 
occhi  la  vidde;  e  mai  gli  pareva  d'aver  veduto  una 
visione  si  gloriosa;  e  dubitava  forte  si  fosse  cosa 
umana.  Sue  amore  per  la  Morte  fu  improwisa- 
mente  cangiato  in  odio  e  sospetto,  perche  questo 
nuovo  amore  fu  si  forte  che  vinse  ogni  altro  pen- 
siero.  E  quella  pietosa  donna  primo  gli  amava  per 
pieta  sola,  ma  tosto  colla  compassione  crebbe  l'a- 
more;  e  gl'amava  schiettamente,  non  avendo  piu 
uopo  d'essere  compatito  alcuno  amato  da  quella. 
Fu  questa  la  donna,  in  traccia  della  quale  Amore 
aveva  menato  il  giovane  per  quel  oscuro  laberinto, 
e  f atto  tanto  errare  e  soffrire ;  forse  che  lo  giudicava 
indegno  ancora  di  tanta  gloria,  e  che  lo  vedeva 
debole  per  tolerare  si  immensa  gioia.    Dopo  avere 


Ci673 


ci  sono,  chi  dicono  chi  [sic  for  che]  Le  anime  di  tutti 
i  due  furono  segnati,  davanti  d'essere  nati  nel  mon- 
do,  a  contentarsi  una  della'  altra,  e  di  non  conten- 
tarsi  finche  (85)  furono  divise  (86)  Queste  due  si 
(87)  passegiavano  insieme  in  quella  selva,  (88) 
quando  la  Morte  si  mise  avanti,  e  disse  (89)  "Men- 
tre  che  tu,  o  giovane,  mi  amasti,  io  ti  odiava,  (90) 
ora,  che  tu  mi  odiasti,  io  ti  amo;  (91)  ed  io  voglio 
tanto  bene  a  te,  ed  alia  tua  sposa,  che  nel  mio  regno, 
(92)  che  (93)  i  piu  chiammano  Paradiso  (94)  vi 
ho  serbato  un  eletto  luogo,  dove  voi  potete  sicura- 
mente  compire  i  vostri  felici  amori."  (95)  Ma  la 
donna  sdegnata,  (96)  e  forse  per  un  poco  di  gelosia 
cagione  del  passato  amore  della  sua  sposa  [sic]  tor- 
no  il  dosso  sopra  la  Morte,  dicendo  fra  se  stesso, 
"Che  vuol  questa  amante  del  mio  sposa  [sic]  che 
viene  qua  turbarci?"— (97)  e  chiamd,  vita  vita!  e 
la  Vita  venne,  col  viso  allegra  [sic]  coronato  [sic] 
dun  iride,  e  vestita  in  versicolor  manto  di  pelle  di 
chameleone  e  la  Morte  si  ne  ando  (98)  piangendo, 
e  dipartendo  disse  dolcemente— (99)  Voi  mi  sos- 
pettate,  ma  io  vi  lo  perdono,  e  vi  aspetto  dove  a 
bisogna  che  passiate;  (100)  perche  io  abito  col 
Amore  ed  Eternita  (101)  con  quelle  e  forza  che  si 
praticassero,  quelle  anime  che  eternamente  amano 
se — Voi  verrete  [sic  for  vedrete]  allora,  si  io  ho 

meritato  i  vostri  dubbj.    In  tanto    j-j    raccam- 

(85)  non  piu  (86)  E  tutti  passioni  perche  quelli,  che  (87) 
canbeavan  (88)  finche  (89)  Finche  tu  mi  (90)  adess 
(91)   e  ti         (92)  ho  (93)  tu  dicevi  (94)  ti  (95)  E 

(96)  \     t  vedere  la  sffacciatetta  [.sic  for  sffacciatezza]       (97)  ed 

il  giovane  /  ed         (98)  ridendo  io  (99)  Tu  mi  (100)  ed 

Amore  abb         (101)  e  tu 

C 168;] 


un  poco  asciugato  il  pianto,  quei  due  passeggiavano 
insieme  in  questa  stessa  selva,  fin  che  la  Morte  si 
mise  avanti  e  disse,  "Mentre  che,  o  giovane,  mi 
amasti,  io  ti  odiava,  ed  ora  che  tu  mi  odiasti,  ti  amo, 
e  voglio  tanto  bene  a  te  ed  alia  tua  sposa  che  nel  mio 
regno,  che  tu  puoi  chiamare  Paradiso,  ho  serbato 
un  eletto  luogo,  dove  voi  potete  securamente  com- 
pire  i  vostri  felici  amori."  E  la  donna  sdegnata,  o 
forse  un  poco  ingelosita  per  cagione  dell'amore 
passato  dello  suo  sposo,  torno  il  dosso  sopra  la 
Morte,  dicendo  fra  se  stesso,  "Che  vuol  questa 
amante  del  mio  sposo  che  viene  qui  turbarci?"  e 
chiamo  "Vita,  Vital"  e  la  Vita  venne  col  viso  alle- 
gro, coronata  d'una  iride,  e  vestita  in  versicolore 
manto  di  pelle  di  cameleone,  e  la  Morte  se  ni  ando 
piangendo,  e  partendo  disse  dolcemente,  "Voi  mi 
sospettate,  ma  io  vi  lo  perdono,  e  vi  aspetto  dove 
bisogna  che  passiate,  perche  io  abito  coll'  Amore  e 
coll'  Eternita,  con  quelle  e  forza  che  praticassero 
quelle  anime  che  eternamente  amano.    Voi  vedrete 


D693 


mando  [sic]  alia  Vita  e  Sorella  mia,  ti  prego  per 
amore  di  quella  Morte  dalla  quale  (102)  tu  sei  la 
gemella  (103),  di  non  adoperare  piu  contro  di 
questi  amanti  le  tue  solite  arte,  ( 104)  da  loro  che  ti 
basti  il  tributo  gia  pagato  di  lagrime  e  (105)  sos- 
piri,  che  sono  le  richezze  tue— (106)  II  giovane, 
rammentandosi  di  quanti  mali  (107)  la  gli  aveva 
recati  in  quel  bosco,  se  (108)  disfidava  della  Vita, 
(109)  ma  la  Donna  quantunque  fu  sospettosa 
nondemmino  [sic  for  nondimeno\  essendo  pure 
gelosa  della  Morte,  credeva  di  far  la  dispetto  di 
andare  piu — s 

(102)   mai  (103)   tu  non  eri  divisa  (104)   ma  di  con- 

ducer  gli  a  me  senza  (105)  di  (106)  E  le  (107)  aveva 
(108)  p       (109)  ed  la  Donna  la 


D70] 


allora  se  io  ho  meritata  i  vostri  dubbj.  Intanto  vi 
raccomando  alia  Vita,  e,  sorella  mia,  ti  prego  per 
amore  di  quella  Morte  della  quella  tu  sei  la  ge- 
mella,  di  non  adoperare  contra  di  questi  amanti  le 
tue  solite  arti,  che  ti  basti  il  tribute  gia  pagato  di 
sospiri  e  di  lagrime,  che  sono  le  ricchezze  tue."  II 
giovane,  rammentandosi  di  quanti  mali  gli  aveva 
recati  in  quel  bosco,  se  disfidava  della  Vita;  ma  la 
donna,  quantunque  in  sospetto,  essendo  pure  gelosa 
della  Morte,  .  .  . 


Ci70 


BIBLIOGRAPHICAL  PARTICULARS  OF 
THE  THREE  NOTE  BOOKS 

The  three  Note  Books  dealt  with  in  these  vol- 
umes and  in  the  paper  which  appeared  in  The 
Bibliophile  Society's  Ninth  Year  Book  should  per- 
haps be  briefly  described.  No.  I  and  No.  Ill  are 
of  identical  type  in  their  material  manufacture, 
that  is  to  say,  the  type  of  a  small  Bank  of  England 
pass-book,  but  with  a  flap  meant  to  be  secured  by 
tying  instead  of  a  flap  with  a  tongue  passing  through 
a  slit  or  strap  as  in  an  old-fashioned  pocket-book. 
The  covers  of  these  two  Shelley  books  are  mere 
strips  of  uncoloured  parchment  lined  with  poor 
paper.  The  flap  of  No.  I  shows  no  trace  of  having 
had  a  tie  attached  to  it;  but  No.  Ill  still  has  the 
remains  of  the  leather  tie  forming  part  of  its 
original  design.  Each  of  these  two  books  was 
formed  by  stitching  six  fasciculi  of  paper  into  the 
primitive  parchment  cover;  and  the  sewing  threads 
pass  through  the  backs  of  the  covers,  where  they 
still  remain  unbroken.  The  strength  of  this  the 
original  sewing  did  not  prevent  Shelley  from  tear- 
ing out  leaves  or  parts  of  leaves  when  so  minded ; 


and  No.  I  has  had  hard  enough  usage  in  that  way 
—so  much  so  that  it  cannot  be  stated  for  certain  of 
how  many  leaves  the  complete  book  at  first  con- 
sisted. No.  Ill  always  contained  as  it  still  does  six 
fasciculi  of  sixteen  leaves  each. 

Note  Book  II,  also  not  ruled  for  cash,  is  less 
businesslike-looking  than  I  and  III,  being  a  little 
half-bound  volume  with  a  pink  parchment  back 
and  boards  covered  with  dark  green  mottled  paper. 
It  was  made  up  of  ten  fasciculi  of  ten  leaves  each 
sewn  in  the  ordinary  way  and  lined  into  a  cover 
with  a  rounded  back.  It  has  regular  end-papers, 
white  and  of  a  decent  quality,  and  each  consisting 
of  a  paste-down  and  a  fly-leaf;  so  that,  to  a  poet 
with  a  soul  above  the  futile  luxury  of  end-papers, 
the  book  was  one  containing  a  hundred  and  two 
leaves  and  two  stuck-down  pages  available  for  his 
immortal  purposes. 

Thus  far  as  regards  the  blank  books  in  whish 
Shelley  wrote  the  poems,  and  made  the  notes  and 
memoranda,  and  drew  the  pictures,  diagrams,  etc., 
which  are  dealt  with  in  this  present  work.  It  re- 
mains to  set  down,  apart  from  the  spiritual  contents 
which  it  has  taken  over  a  year  and  a  half  to 
examine  and  deal  with,  the  material  contents  of  the 
three  manuscript  volumes  as  now  existing  in  the 
collection  of  Mr.  Bixby;  and  they  can  in  this  re- 
spect be  dealt  with  in  their  natural  order,  Note 
Book  I,  Note  Book  II,  and  Note  Book  III. 


Note  Book  I  is  the  least  easy  to  calendar.  My 
long  daily  intimacy  with  the  soul  of  the  little  vol- 
ume has  naturally  led  to  an  intimate  acquaintance 
with  every  detail  of  its  body  and  its  body's  mishaps, 
—its  bends  and  its  breaks,  its  wrenches  and  its 
lacerations,  stains,  creases,  and  so  on;  and  it  has 
become  a  conviction  almost  amounting  to  certainty 
that  the  six  fasciculi  of  which  the  book  originally 
consisted  were  not  of  uniform  bulk,  three  being 
composed  of  sixteen  leaves  each  and  three  of  twelve 
leaves  each.  The  matter  is  not  very  important; 
and  yet  it  were  well  to  know  as  much  as  may  be  as 
to  the  measure  of  what  we  have  lost  through  the 
poet's  many  acts  of  aggression  and  assault  on  this 
poor  little  receptacle  into  which  he  poured  such 
infinitely  valuable  treasure.  I  have  no  doubt,  then, 
that,  in  starting  from  "Swiftly  walk  o'er  the  West- 
ern wave,"  we  are  beginning  at  what  was  the  first 
leaf  of  the  book  when  it  was  a  virgin  volume 
whereon  Shelley's  pen  had  made  no  assault,  and 
that  that  fasciculus  was  one  of  sixteen  leaves.  Let- 
tering the  fasciculi  as  "A"  to  "F,"  we  may  now 
record  what  leaves,  in  my  opinion,  they  originally 
contained,  and  how  many  of  them  they  now  con- 
tain. 

Fasciculus  A,  then,  appears  to  have  consisted  of 


sixteen  leaves,  of  which  the  fourth  has  been  torn  out 
all  but  a  narrow  blank  stub,  and  the  eleventh  all  but 
a  half-inch  stub  of  some  interest,  while  the  present 
middle  leaves  of  the  fasciculus,  the  seventh  and 
eighth,  are  blasted  with  such  evidences  of  an  earth- 
quake that  I  am  sure  Shelley  impetuously  tore  out 
the  real  middle,  and  that  thus  the  true  middle  (the 
original  eighth  and  ninth  leaves)  is  missing:  re- 
mainder twelve  leaves,  of  which  two  are  mutilated. 

Fasciculus  B  no  doubt  started  in  life  twelve 
leaves  strong,  of  which  the  third,  eighth,  tenth, 
eleventh,  and  twelfth,  are  gone.  The  first  and  sec- 
ond are  lying  loose  in  the  book:  doubtless  they  and 
the  third  got  adrift  when  Shelley  violently  divorced 
them  from  their  fellows,  the  tenth,  eleventh,  and 
twelfth.  One,  the  third  (which  Garnett  certainly 
transcribed),  was  not  in  the  book  when  sold;  and 
the  second  was  misplaced  as  the  first  leaf  in  the 
mutilated  book,  and  catalogued  accordingly.  Re- 
mainder seven  leaves. 

Fasciculus  C  was  another  twelve-leaved  one;  but 
the  first  and  second  leaves  are  gone  all  but  two 
uneventful  stubs,  while  the  ninth,  tenth,  eleventh, 
and  twelfth  have  been  roughly  torn  out,  leaving 
two  eventful  and  two  uneventful  stubs.  Remainder 
six  leaves. 

Fasciculus  D  was  the  third  twelve-leaved  one. 
The  fifth,  sixth,  eighth,  tenth,  and  eleventh  leaves 
are  torn  out,  nothing  worth  record  being  left  on 
any  of  the  stubs.    Remainder  seven  leaves. 

CI763 


Fasciculus  E  had  sixteen  leaves  to  start  with;  but 
the  fourth,  tenth,  eleventh,  thirteenth,  fifteenth, 
and  sixteenth  are  gone  all  but  unmarked  stubs.  Re- 
mainder ten  leaves. 

Fasciculus  F  originally  ended  the  book  with  six- 
teen leaves,  of  which  the  fifteenth  has  gone,  leaving 
only  an  unmarked  stub,  while  two  thirds  of  the 
sixteenth  have  been  torn  off.  Remainder  fourteen 
leaves  and  a  third. 

Thus,  Note  Book  I,  in  which  as  in  the  case  of  II 
and  III  Shelley  made  a  beginning  at  each  end, 
has  fifty-six  leaves  for  its  two  paginations.  These 
have  now  been  paged  by  me  in  pencil  at  Mr.  Bix- 
by's  request,  and  form  an  unstarred  and  a  starred 
pagination,  in  each  of  which  the  leaves  are  num- 
bered with  the  addition  of  the  letters  r.  (recto) 
and  v.  (verso),  thus:— i  r.,  i  v.,  2  r.,  2  v.,  and  so  on 
up  to  16  r. ;  and  *  1  r.,  *  1  v.,  and  so  on  up  to  *  41  r. 
(which  forms  the  verso  of  16  r.,  though  each  is,  in 
its  own  pagination,  a  recto).  The  rough  paper  of 
the  lining  having  got  unstuck  by  moisture  and  hav- 
ing marks,  sums,  etc.,  on  it  at  each  end  of  the  book, 
the  loose  lining  of  the  recto  cover  is  numbered 
1  r.  (a)  and  that  of  the  verso  cover  *  1  r.  (a). 


II 

In  Note  Book  II  the  original  one  hundred  and 
two  leaves  are   represented  now  by  ninety-four 

1^771 


(counting  the  fly-leaves,  as  in  the  original  hundred 
and  two).  Two  of  the  ninety-four  are  mutilated, 
but  come  into  the  account  in  virtue  of  the  writing 
Shelley  left  upon  them.  Of  the  eight  missing  leaves 
six  are  indicated  by  the  barest  stubs,  one  by  a  wide 
stub  with  no  marks  on  it,  and  one  by  a  stub  with 
the  remains  of  pencilled  words  on  both  sides.  The 
leaves  are  numbered  from  i  r.  to  32  r.  in  the  first 
pagination  and  from  *  1  r.  to  *  63  r.  in  the  second 
pagination.  Page  *  63  r.  forms  the  verso  of  page 
32  r.,  though  each  is,  in  its  own  pagination,  a  recto. 
The  paste-downs,  being  written  and  drawn  upon, 
have  been  numbered  1  r.  (a)  and  *  1  r.  (a). 


Ill 

Of  the  original  ninety-six  leaves  of  Note  Book 
III,  not  one  has  been  removed;  but  two  have  been 
mutilated, — one  with  the  disastrous  effect  of  re- 
moving, with  the  part  torn  out,  a  corner  of  the  cor- 
responding leaf  bearing  words  of  Shelley's  that  we 
particularly  want, — the  other  harmlessly,  as  far  as 
we  can  judge,  for  it  was  probably  blank  all  over. 
The  leaves  are  numbered  from  1  r.  to  78  v.  in  the 
first  pagination  and  from  *  1  r.  to  *  18  v.  in  the 
second.  The  coarse  paper  lining  of  the  parchment 
cover  is  blank  at  one  end,  while  the  other  bears  a 
very  slight  pencil  sketch— just  a  few  lines,  repre- 
senting a  schooner  with  sails  set  on  both  masts  and 

D783 


a  bare  hull  alongside,  like  the  hull  of  the  boat 
figured  at  page  101  of  this  volume. 

The  objects  of  the  numbering  of  the  pages  in 
these  books  are  that  it  may  be  known  exactly  how 
many  leaves  are  at  the  present  time  comprised  in 
these  extraordinarily  precious  relics  of  a  great  poet, 
and  that  any  students  allowed  access  to  the  books 
may  be  able,  henceforth,  to  refer  to  any  page  by  its 
actual  number— thus  I  15  r.,  I  *  28  v.,  II  9  v., 
II  *  21  r.,  Ill  19  r.,  Ill  *  6  v.,  and  so  on,  as  exem- 
plified in  the  commentary  interspersed  among 
Shelley's  compositions  in  this  present  work. 


Ci793 


